


dressing the scarecrow

by coldmackerel



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, and villanelle likes her more than is wise given the circumstances, but also doesn't because eve is blind, eve witnesses a high level assassination, they come to an understanding of sorts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:00:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29267628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldmackerel/pseuds/coldmackerel
Summary: eve reads with robots and isn’t very nice. these are both very attractive qualities in a woman. it’s a shame villanelle has to kill her and a bigger shame she can’t.how gauche.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 87
Kudos: 338





	1. x. mutually exclusive, but not yet

**Author's Note:**

> i’d like to thank @hautwavelove and @musicsquirrel47 on twitter for their generous screening of this fic prior to posting to provide me with some much needed insight, perspective, and sensitivity. i’m not disabled and i’ve never actually written a disabled character before so i had to borrow some perspective. i want to do it right! bearing that in mind, two perspectives don’t encompass the wide array of experiences and feelings amongst any group of people, so if anyone reading feels some type of way about the content, characterization, or representation herein, please drop me a line! i’d love to do better!

  
  


____________________

x. mutually exclusive, but not yet

____________________

  
  


That first time Villanelle sees her, she is not seen. She will be, but she isn’t.

This is not so unusual in itself - if she was seen every time she saw, she would be slipping knives into fronts rather than backs and that just doesn’t pay as well. It’s a career best served by being invisible, twisty the way good irony is, because being unseen is an absolute rash of a way to live one’s life. _Someone like her_ , who really wants that? But there’s more than one way to be a spectacle and Villanelle knows all of them. 

This is something different. This is witness and witness-not. It is seen and unseen and if she’s pressed, _okay_ , a bit of a mistake in its execution.

This is not spectacle so much as _exposure_.

Villanelle’s holding the limp corpse of one of the country’s wealthiest investors suspended only by the piano wire she’s garotted around his neck and she’s being stared at in this moment of all things. The Hermès of murders turned inside out into the Sézane of murders, clearance rack. Bad joke, good value.

“Hello?”

Villanelle’s brow furrows and she finds herself saying, “Hello.”

It’s an absurdism she can’t refuse.

The woman glances off to the side, swivels her jaw just so and cocks her head, expression thoughtful. “You’re not William Trotter,” she points out.

Villanelle hoists William Trotter’s heavy lump of a body a little higher like a big ugly puppet, grabbing the back of his hair and flopping his chin back and forth in a goofy nod. “Yes I am.”

“Where is he?”

Villanelle’s face screws up and she takes a long slinking side glance to meet his bulged, dead stare. He’s not much of a scene partner. It’s still funny, she’s a professional, even off the rack.

“Indisposed?” Villanelle goes with.

“And you are?”

Villanelle narrows her eyes and chews on her cheek as William’s head lolls to the side and thunks against hers before swinging chin to chest. She’s trying really hard not to laugh, but the woman hasn’t screamed so they’re just not there...yet. “I am his assistant. Temporary assistant, _very_ temporary, just holding him up a bit. He’s...a little tied up at the moment.”

Not even a chuckle, everyone’s a critic.

“Maybe you can answer my questions, then.”

“Oh, I very sincerely doubt it.” But it could be fun to try.

Her guest sighs and shakes her head, eyes glancing about the place for an awkward moment while Villanelle’s arms tire. Eventually, she sighs and gestures behind her. “Christ, took me forever to find his office. Would you at least see me out?”

“Oh yes, I’ll watch.” There are worse things than watching women leave.

“Don’t be an asshole.” She hefts a white cane up, expression flat and it takes Villanelle a little too long to recognize it for what it is. When she finally does, though, a slow smile pulls at her cheeks. This is... _something_. In a grand world of nothing, it’s something.

She’s been seen without being seen at all, in a way. An unotherwise dull, passionless chore of a murder made colorful even if its something that could possibly, _maybe_ be unimaginatively considered a mistake - it’s _not_ , not quite - you just have to stand back a bit. Tilt your head. It’s exciting.

As an artist who spends a fair amount of time painting in greys, she’s entranced. As Villanelle, she’s _enthralled_.

And yes, she should kill her, quick, _quicker_ , the deep pockets she has her hands in come with very little restriction but none so finite as _leave no trace._ But that just doesn’t seem very fun.

William Trotter hits the ground with a loud _thunk_ and Villanelle winds her wire back around her thumb and little finger before stowing it in her pocket and circling his corpse as she wipes her hands off. “Okay, I won’t. Just this once, okay? I can’t make a habit of it.”

The woman’s mouth turns down as she turns toward the noise. “What was that?”

“Bit of dead weight.”

Yes? Yes. It’s funny.

Villanelle hovers near her, feeling awkward and rubs at the back of her head. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Crouch and I’ll get on your back.”

Villanelle stares at her.

“Oh my god, it was a joke. Yikes, lighten up,” she mutters, reaching out and wiggling her fingers expectantly. “Just let me hold your elbow and take me to the front door, would you?”

“Aye aye, capitan,” Villanelle chirps in a rough brogue. “Avast the sails and stuff.” Her accent drops and she frowns. “I don’t know anything about boats.”

The woman’s smile is enchanted too, confused and intrigued, and Villanelle wonders if they’re feeling the same kinds of _something_ about it. “Oh no, _you’re_ the captain now. I’m Skipper,” she corrects as her fingers find Villanelle’s offered arm and circle her elbow. “Never could get that boating license. You should’ve seen how close I was, though.”

“You know? I would like to have seen that,” Villanelle muses as she leads them from the office.

She glances over at her as they walk, admires the bounce of her hair and the unbothered blink of her eyes and thinks it’d be kind of a shame to kill her. She _really_ should. There’s time yet to decide, they’re deep in a highrise warehouse of office spaces, which really begs the question how she found her way there in the first place. Villanelle takes her fill of watching her.

And then that’s not enough, she wants _more_. “What is your name? I want it.”

“What’s yours?”

Villanelle’s brow furrows and she thinks it’s a fair _quid pro quo_ , if not dangerous. You don’t get something for nothing, but there’s something thrilling about toeing the line like this. “Villanelle,” she finds herself saying. It’s exciting because she shouldn’t. She really, really shouldn’t.

“No it’s not.”

“It is! That’s my name, I chose it!” Villanelle briefly entertains leading her to an open tenth-story window and telling her it's the front door. Very _briefly,_ okay?

The woman laughs to herself and squeezes Villanelle’s elbow gently. “Alright, _Villanelle_. If that is in fact your name and not a type of wine I can’t afford.”

“I know you’re making fun of me, but you do know it’s a real word, right?”

“Can’t pull the wool over my eyes, asshole.” She says it so pretty, though, Villanelle... _wants._ It’s that fleeting kind of fascination she’s torched towns over just for fun.

“I mean I could, but you wouldn’t really notice.”

Eve pinches the skin of her inner arm, _ouch._

“What is your name! I still want it.”

“I’m Eve.”

“No you’re not.”

Eve grins and it wrinkles her nose and yes. Villanelle decides she’s going to like her. Whatever that costs, she can hardly wait to find out. 

Of course, she’s thought she liked a lot of things and people with many horrible, varied results. People have a way of kissing you one day, then sending you to prison for castrating their husband the next. We just can’t predict these things.

“You’re not really William Trotter’s assistant, are you?”

Villanelle laughs through her nose. “No.”

“What were you doing in his office?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what _you_ were doing there.”

Eve narrows her eyes, then purses her lips in an exaggerated expression of consideration. “No. I don’t think I will.”

“Bad choice, mine was so cool. I have been told that those who do the snooze, do the lose.”

They reach the front door, Eve’s grip slides loose from her elbow and Villanelle supposes she’s just going to let her go. Her heart isn’t in it, it just seems like an awful boring thing to cut the cord on someone like Eve. She’s just seen the murder of the fourth richest man in the world and she doesn’t know it yet, but she might! It leaves a taste in Villanelle’s mouth where many things do not.

“Goodbye, _Villanelle_.”

Villanelle rolls her eyes and stuffs her hands in her pockets. “That’s my name!”

“Sure,” Eve shrugs and pushes her cane forward to probe against the grain of the sidewalk as she turns to go. “Thanks,” she adds over her shoulder.

Villanelle watches her go thoughtfully. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Do _you_ ?” She turns back over her shoulder with a grin. “ _Captain,_ my ass.”

“Well I don’t have a license for _that_.”

“And you never will,” Eve teases. She’s confident, unassisted, unhindered as she makes her way out of earshot, _she didn’t need me_ , Villanelle thinks, _she was playing games._ It would not be so bad to see her again.

She very well may.

She often finds herself drawn or compelled or ordered to valuable things and she’s knowingly just let Eve walk off with something _very_ expensive. Hook in mouth, though, it's just good fishing to give a little slack.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


William Trotter’s death hits the news so quickly, Villanelle wonders whether she knew first at all. Konstantin’s pleased, in that hollow way of his. He’s only happy when she’s not, which begs the question why she keeps him around at all. As a metric, maybe. Sometimes she needs help knowing when she’s happy and when she’s not and he is always the first to show her.

He’s absolutely chuffed with her toneless, detached response. So much so he pours himself some vodka and fixes himself a plate of her leftovers to sit at the table and eat gloatingly. She ignores him. She’s thinking.

The way he manipulates his knife to gently, neatly box rice onto his fork pisses her off. “You keep on like this, they’ll _really_ notice you. Promotion-level notice, hm?”

He carefully scrapes crumbs from his knife onto the edge of his fork before leaning in to sample his crafted bite and she wants so badly to swipe it from his hands. “I got caught,” she announces. Just because.

His fork stops before his mouth and he looks up at her. It was worth the dashed pleasure on his face, really. “You what?”

“A woman was there. She walked in as I killed him.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Am I not making myself clear? I got caught.”

He puts his fork down and the rice crumbles from its tines, thank god. “And? I do not understand. This isn’t funny, Villanelle.”

“It’s a little funny,” Villanelle disagrees as she leans forward to take back her leftovers. She’s decided she can’t watch him eat that annoyingly. “Don’t give me that look, she’s blind. It’s funny! She didn’t even know he was dead and then she left. It’s not a problem, it’s just something that happened.”

Konstantin’s eyes go wide and she can hear his teeth grind even from across the table. “Have you seen the news?” Holding her gaze, he reaches out for his glass and drains the entire thing. “I bet she knows _now_.”

“Well,” Villanelle says thoughtfully, tapping Konstantin’s fork against the plate. “Probably shouldn’t have told her my name then.”

Konstantin’s glass cracks in his fist.

“I wonder what she’s thinking right now? I hope she’s thinking of me. She was very beautiful, Konstantin - oh, don’t give me that look.”

  
  


____________________

  
  


She’s in trouble.

But that’s not news, that’s like waking up to rain. She’s put in a sanctioned kind of time-out, suspension, whatever. She’s asked to lay low in her Parisian flat and surely they know how that must sound. Laying low. They embarrass themselves by asking. 

Konstantin goes dark and she hopes he’s not trying to find Eve and have her offed. That would be disappointing, it’s her thing. No, she will not be sharing.

She hasn’t given a name or an accurate description or much of anything, but she worries a little. According to the interwebs, there are maybe half a million blind people in the UK, which isn’t exactly the perspective relief Villanelle was angling for. She knows better than anyone how easy it is to find a person.

What if they really do try to take it from her? And then she finds herself worrying a lot and she’s not one to let a compulsion ride. Better than anyone, she knows the ephemeral nature of life and passion and impulse. Eve is _something_ and they want to take it, they always do.

Eve isn’t a damsel, she can survive something like Konstantin and his oafish temper. But still.

If she’s said anything, she won’t be anonymous for long. Her existence is precarious.

Villanelle blames the opening of a search engine and the subsequent research on boredom and intrigue. The trip to London to Eve Polastri’s neighborhood is much less difficult to assign blame, but she’ll _manage,_ okay? Justification is just hot air, we’re all filled with it, only ever a breath away.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


She trails Eve for two days, which is even easier than normal tailing, because Eve can’t see her, so. It is what it is. She spends a lot of time at the library and it’s not interesting, it’s _not_ , but watching Eve navigate her world the way she does is something new, at least. Villanelle learns things despite her reticence for such devotions.

Eve reads with robots and isn’t very nice. These are both attractive qualities in a woman.

Eve seems familiar with a number of the library pages who come and go quietly, touching her shoulder to offer her finds or just talk. Eve’s all business, though. They don’t stay long and her attention doesn’t stray.

But _Villanelle_ wants to be the one touching her shoulder and talking. Ugh.

Overall, though, Eve’s more solitary than Villanelle would’ve guessed a person like her could be.

She’s alone, she’s unbothered. Villanelle likes watching her.

The quiet murmur of Eve’s assistive reading device barely reaches Villanelle two tables away. It’s harmonized by the quiet click of her keyboard ticking under it and Villanelle finds herself hardly awake by the end of it. Hypnotic calm and little robot voices and she’s very pretty.

Also, Villanelle should probably kill her.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


On the third day, Eve walks one block past her flat, then stops abruptly in the middle of the way and stands there. Villanelle thinks she probably looks weird standing there too, but it’s not like it matters.

Slowly, Eve turns on her heel and regards her. Somehow.

“Can I fucking help you?”

Villanelle blinks and looks behind her, hopeful there’s a circus there and the spectacle isn’t just her. She’s never really hoped that before.

Eve flutters her eyelids, critical and impatient. “Are you following me for fun, _Villanelle_ , or are you going to be killing me too?”

Villanelle makes a frustrated gesture and takes a few steps closer. “What in the heck. How did you know?”

“When you’ve been without sight as long as I have, your other senses compensate. I felt you. Smelled you too.”

Villanelle balks. “What? You - what do I smell like?”

Eve cracks a smile and rolls her eyes.

“Okay, very funny. Always with the jokes.”

“My neighbor saw you following me like a creep all week. I really did consider letting him call the police, you know?” Eve turns and keeps walking and Villanelle supposes she’s been burned, the least she can do is face the fallout and tag along. “Also, I just kind of guessed. I actually said the same thing to my mailman yesterday. He almost fell to pieces.”

As she comes up to Eve’s side, Eve reaches out a hand expectantly. “Give me your elbow. We’re going to go have a _chat_.”

So she does, it’s not really a request is it? Eve’s not following, though, so much as Villanelle’s being led down the block, well-worn territory for Eve. Villanelle feels distinctly scolded. “Using your neighbor is cheating.”

“I already can’t see. You sneak around. Who’s cheating?”

“Cheater, cheater, eater of _pumpkins_.”

“Did you really think blind people had super powers?”

Villanelle pouts and Eve pats her hand and she kind of likes it, even if she’s being made fun of.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


In Villanelle’s esteem, food is a good way to earn her forgiveness, so the second Eve takes her into a little corner cafe, she’s already forgiven. It’s better than the library, she should’ve outed herself days ago. Eve orders for her, tells her to find a seat in the back, and settles herself where she’s guided. “So,” she says when they’re facing each other, “I haven’t told anyone. About Trotter.”

“What’s to tell?”

“That you killed him,” she says airily, sliding her hands forward until she finds her coffee to sip at.

“I wish you hadn’t said that. You will wish that too.”

“I imagine you do wish that,” Eve agrees, breathing in deeply against the wobbling surface tension of her drink. She smiles at the smell of it and sighs. “I don’t think lying will do either of us any good.”

“Lying is my favorite. It can do a lot of good, you should try it.”

The conversation around them burbles, warm and jovial, which is a weird way to have to tell someone you’re going to kill them. It’s such a shame. Villanelle’s eyes close of their own accord and she shakes her head with a little sigh.

Then an aproned man brings their pastries out on plates and that’s worse! Nobody deserves to be told they’re going to die over pastries, least of all someone like Eve.

“I don’t think I’m going to like killing you,” Villanelle admits before she sinks her teeth into a lovely raspberry pastry, showering flaky crust across her plate and the table. “I don’t think I’m going to enjoy it at all. I think it might make me sad.”

Eve only falters a moment over her own plate, a blink of unease, then she’s back to her breakfast with a similar little sigh. Oh, the troubles they share. But sharing is nice, even if it’s murder.

Villanelle watches her, unwatched herself. It doesn’t exactly feel fair, but life isn’t really fair, is it?

“Well, if you’re going to kill me, could I at least ask you a few questions?”

Villlanelle’s lips purse, then she gestures with her pastry. “Alright.”

“Were you sent? Bought and paid for? The news reads like a professional job, though they’ll never say it.”  
  


“Yes.”

“And you’re expensive, I imagine?”

Villanelle’s chewing slows and she narrows her eyes. “Of course I’m expensive, look at me.”

Eve sips her coffee, unimpressed. She would be impressed if she could see! “So Trotter was into more than finance. Big surprise,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. “So much for that.”

“So much for what?”

“Nothing, doesn’t matter. I was working on an article. I freelance and sell exposés - was working up to one on Trotter. You know, you’d make an interesting article. Anything else you want to come clean about?”

“Oh _good_ , you’re a journalist. Motherfuck. Now I have to kill you twice as hard,” Villanelle grumbles.

Eve gestures at the calm, cozy atmosphere of the eatery. “What if I just don’t leave this cafe? What will you do then?”

“I’ll kill you here!” Villanelle laughs. “I’m very good, you’ll hardly even notice you’ve been killed.” Eve gives her a doubtful little look and Villanelle scoffs. “I killed a man in front of you and you didn’t notice.”

“That’s hardly my fault. Dead weight, though? That was funny.”

Villanelle grins. “Yes. Yes it was. Can I have another pastry? That was very good.”

Eve waves in the direction of the counter. “Well go on then. Might as well be on my tab, it’s not like I can take it with me.”

“I wish everyone I killed was as good a sport as you are, Eve,” Villanelle beams, flagging down a server for another round. They say there is no table service and she must go to the counter to order, but like most things in life, if you throw a big enough fit there is actually very little of _cannot_ or _no._ They can and they do, eventually. _Won’t_ is surmountable.

They bring the pastry. This time, the pastry is laced daintily with cardamom and pear and Eve keeps her eyes tilted in the direction of the window, quiet as she drinks her coffee and stares like she’s watching pedestrians pass on the sidewalk. When she’s finished, Villanelle wipes her mouth on a napkin and folds her arms on the table. Eve doesn’t look sad, just a light shade of resigned.

“So who have you told about me, hm?”

Eve comes back to herself and turns toward her, blinking. “What do you mean?”

“You make your career on salacious information. Are you waiting for the highest bidder or is my name already in the mouths of government investigators?” When nothing is forthcoming, Villanelle grunts into the lip of her own sweetened mug of coffee. It tastes like chocolate candy, which is better than it tasting like coffee. “Come on, you’re the one who said you can’t take it with you.”

Unexpectedly, Eve snorts and has to cover an abrupt laugh with her hand. “Sorry - what would I be telling them, exactly? What your elbow felt like? Your precise vocal range? Your fake name? Come on.”

“It’s my real name!”

“I don’t care that he’s dead, _Villanelle_ ,” Eve over-pronounces her name like an arsehole. “Trotter was a piece of human shit. Besides, what you do and what I do aren’t so different. You think people have lives when I’m done with them?”

Villanelle thinks it over. “That’s very sexy of you.”

Eve’s mouth flattens and she returns to pretending to look out the window.

“So you haven’t told anyone?”

“No. Who would I tell? What would I tell?”

“I know you’re being cute with me, but please understand the scraps hold worth. Money worth. _Blood_ worth,” she explains slowly. She’s not sure why, it just feels like if she can explain it right maybe overlooking this one thing won’t matter so much. It’s a dangerous thing to think. They are two truths, the two of them. Mutually exclusive and one will have to go.

Eve shrugs and gestures with her mug at nothing. “That’s not interesting to me.”

“And I am?” Villanelle dares to hope.

“I don’t know yet,” Eve says with a sly smile and Villanelle can’t help but share it.

Mutually exclusive, _but maybe not yet._ Villanelle just isn’t done yet.

  
  
  


____________________

  
  
  


Somehow they’re at the library again and Eve is still alive and neither of them mentions it. Eve shushes her when she complains about the stuffy atmosphere and directs her attention to the compiled, tied stack of periodicals and prints and earnings calendars and oh no, Villanelle is asleep already. She makes an exaggerated snoring noise and Eve snaps her fingers in her face.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what? You’re giving me a case of the naps.”

“I didn’t make you come here,” Eve reminds her. “My exposé could still sell, you know. Maybe not as well, but I’ve got leads on money laundering, insider trading, _and_ dummy corporations with criminal ties. You kind of ruined it by murdering him, but I’ve still got bills to pay.”

“I made it _better_ by murdering him.”

“Shush, quiet.”

“Relax, nobody here thinks I actually murdered anyone.”

“I do. And shush because it’s a library.”

Villanelle slumps back into the hardback chair, glaring over at Eve as she sifts documents, thumbing through tabs in a way that probably makes sense to her. It feels purposeful that she’s not responding to the glare, like she’s glad she can’t see it.

“I’m still going to kill you, you know,” Villanelle mutters. “Even if I like you.”

Eve nods. “Okay.”

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


Eve’s still alive that evening when Villanelle walks her pointlessly back to her apartment. She doesn’t need help - not on this route - it’s obvious. She just likes hitting Villanelle’s ankles with her cane and making patronizing comments.

Then she’s back at her apartment and still alive, just a bit behind schedule. “I’ll just kill you tomorrow, I guess.”

“Whatever works for you,” Eve says agreeably.

“I mean it.”

“Consider it penciled in.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Penned in?”

Villanelle goes quiet while Eve unlocks her front door and walks into the dark flat without bothering to hit the lights.

Oh, right.

Floundering at the door, Villanelle squints inside to where Eve shuffles about, quite comfortable with her space in the dark. It feels like a place Villanelle doesn’t belong in. Eve’s comfort is a fragile palace and Villanelle breaks things for fun. “Should I close this?”

“If you’re leaving,” Eve calls over her shoulder.

“You’re not even a little bit afraid? I can make you afraid. I will, Eve, I’m _very_ good at it.”

Eve doesn’t answer her, she’s throwing her coat at a chair and disappearing down the little hallway out of sight. 

“She’s afraid,” Villanelle tells herself, pulling the door shut. She checks that the handle has locked before she leaves. “She will be.”

  
  
  


____________________

  
  
  
  


Villanelle doesn’t kill her the next day either.

“And let me tell you why,” Villanelle leads as they share a basket of chips in the fluorescent window of a grubby fast food joint.

Eve gestures diplomatically.

“Because it feels weird killing a person who can’t see it coming.”

“Oh, gross. Don’t be like that,” Eve scoffs. “Just kill me.”

“I’m working up to it!”

Daintily, Eve plucks a single chip from the basket and nibbles on the end, giving Villanelle this wicked little look, she’s daring her to do it. It’s kind of hot. “I think you’re stalling.”

“Yeah? And you can tell that how? Is it the look on my face?”

“No, it’s the way we’ve eaten six meals together in two days and I’ve been killed zero times.”

Villanelle laughs despite herself, then bends to rest her chin on her folded hands as she looks up at Eve’s amused expression. “Zero times. Really? I swear I am better than I am coming off.”

“Did you even kill Trotter or did you just annoy him to death?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was the piano wire, but now I am wondering.” When Eve reaches out for more fries, Villanelle unfolds one of her hands and gently begins to slide the basket closer, quietly out of Eve’s questing reach. She just kind of wants to see what will happen.

Eve stops quickly, unamused. “I’ll kill you.”

“You really think you could kill me?” Villanelle puts them back, nonetheless. “Before I kill you? That,” she punctuates her point by popping a chip into her mouth, “Is a bold claim. I’m deadly and you’re...”

“Well, it’s either you or me, right? I expose you or you kill me, seems we end up that way one way or another. I do have one advantage, though.”

Villanelle stops chewing. “What? What advantage? I have _every_ advantage.”

“You don’t. You’re doing it right now, the thing that’ll make this hard for you.” She pauses. “You know that thing they say? There’s a bear and I don’t have to outrun him, I just have to outrun you.”

“What? What is a bear doing here? I am the bear. It’s just me and you and I’m going to eat you. Don’t be stupid,” Villanelle snaps, ripping the basket closer toward herself and hoarding them. Eve is pushing buttons and she should stop. “You’re alive because I like you. And when I’m done, _you’re done._ ”

Rain picks up outside, tapping politely at the glass beside them. As moments tick by, it grows impatient and tap-taps less politely, smacks its palm at the window. Villanelle picks a chip apart, eating the middle segment, then stacking the two end segments and smushing them together in her fingers, molding them grossly before swallowing the mess and starting again.

“You play with your food.”

“You can’t see that.”

Eve stares at her. “I don’t have to.”

“I _am_ the bear.”

Eve’s expression relaxes and she gives a little shrug, clipping the tension at its middle point. “You’re going to see it when you kill me - _if_ you kill me. You’re going to feel it.” She sniffs, disinterested. "I'll make sure of it."

“I don’t feel it. _Ever_. And I like seeing it.”

“No, you like looking and being looked at. I don’t think you like seeing or being seen. We have time, though.”

Villanelle wonders if that’s true, but finds she’s too relieved to be told that to question it. “Fine. What is the bear? I want to know. How do I run if I don’t know what the bear is?”

It’s like Eve knows something she doesn’t when she takes another chip and wags it with a smug look. “If I tell you what the bear is, you’ll win. My only other advantage is you don’t know _the bear._ ”

“That’s not fair.”

“Bears aren’t fair and neither am I. Sucks not knowing what’s behind you, doesn’t it?

Villanelle agrees, it sucks and she doesn’t like it. She still likes Eve, though.

  
  


______________________

  
  
  


Villanelle doesn’t kill Eve on the third day either.

And let her tell you why.

Eve lets her into her pitch dark flat because she’s not going to the library, it’s a Saturday. She’s staying in and yes, Villanelle may stay, but only if she plans to kill her.

“Can I turn on the lights or is that considered rude?”

In the dark, Eve turns, shaking her head solemnly. “It’s very rude. The asking is rude too.”

Annoyed, Villanelle reaches out and begins flickering the kitchen lights like a strobe.

“Stop it.”

“You can see that?”

Eve gives her a patronizing look, but Villanelle’s too curious to care. “Yes. Light, dark, some shadow. Not much else. You look like a blob in high enough light. I’m assuming that’s what you actually look like, you ugly little gremlin. Villain mustache too, maybe. Yes? Yes, I’ve decided. You have a curly mustache. Leave my lights alone.”

Villanelle leaves them on, then finally gets a moment to take in Eve’s flat. It’s nothing like her flat in Paris, it’s horrible really. Dull, organized, no flare. No fun!

“Your flat sucks.”

“You suck.”

Why does everyone keep saying that?

She’s not much of a host either, Villanelle finds, as Eve just plops herself down at her desk and ignores her. Most people offer drinks or chairs or something. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Well if you’re not going to be killing me, you’re welcome to my television. I have work.”

“What exactly do _you_ do with a television?”

“Audio description, genius.”

“You’re a very rude inspiration, you know that?”

“If you call me an inspiration again in my own home, I'm going to release the hounds.”

What is _rude_ is promising hounds when there are none. Not so much as a puppy, Villanelle _checks_. No pets, sparse furnishing, tidy but not attractively so. And Eve’s probably very aware that she’s snooping, but she doesn’t make a scene of it. Even when Villanelle is rattling products in the bathroom and loudly shuffling through drawers, she pretends she’s blissfully unaware.

Dull clothes, greys, browns, blacks, practical, fitted, but nothing showy. Their similarities are dwindling by the minute. Everything is practical and a little depressed. If Villanelle was without the burden of sight, she’d take more liberties to disregard the social constraints of others’.

Well. She already does that, but Eve is missing out.

“Are you aware you only wear shades of _earth_ or is someone playing tricks on you at the boutique? Not even a dark green or a maroon.”

Eve’s head ticks to the side and she turns with an elbow on the back of her chair. “What’s _green_?”

“You know if you keep behaving like this, you won’t have any friends.”

“Punishment fits the crime, I accept.” Eve turns back to her work. And okay, Villanelle kind of likes that too. The meanness.

“Do you actually not know green?”

Eve shoots her an exasperated look. “Yes I know green. I saw fine until the _incredibly rare_ , but not-apparently-that-rare autoimmune disease. I have fond memories of green.”

“Ooooh, you’re _rare.”_

“You’re a tool.”

“I like pink,” Villanelle shares. “And I like things that make people jealous of me, afraid of me and _want_ me. What is the point of dressing a package at all if you’re not going to dress it well? They don’t wrap anything of value in cheap paper, least of all _gifts_ .” The ‘ _like me’_ is implied, of course.

“Guess you’ll have to find another way to get me excited about the gift, your highness. I can’t see the wrapping,” Eve says but Villanelle thinks that’s not _her_ problem. “Doesn’t all your shopping leave suspicious credit trails? _Trackable_ trails?”

“I’m wearing Loewe!”

Eve makes a little noise like, _ah._ She doesn’t even turn around. “I’m wearing brown. I think.”

Villanelle grunts and comes to stand over Eve’s shoulder, splaying one hand flat on the desk as she bends over her to peruse her work. She’s not looking at the work, really, she just wants to rile. She wants Eve to turn toward her and see annoyance flicker like light across her otherwise unflappable expression. She’s just fun that way.

“Yes?”

“Would you like me to snap your neck? It’s supposedly painless.”

“No, but I’d kind of like to order a pizza. You want pizza?”

  
Unfortunately, she does. And _that’s_ why.

  
  
  
  


____________________

xx.

____________________


	2. xx. the indetectable difference between pasta and murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> noodles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there aren't really any words to describe being alone for a year. all kinds of love gone stale. but if you're also having a hard time and happen to be here, i wanted to give a few moments of distraction. its kind of one of the last things i still love.

  
  


____________________

xx. the indetectable difference between pasta and murder

____________________   
  


  
  
  


On the fourth day, she meets Bill and that’s why she doesn’t kill Eve, but she does consider killing Bill. He’s the nosy neighbor and catches Villanelle standing outside Eve’s door with food from an Italian restaurant with  _ unparalleled _ pasta. She’d stopped eating it halfway through because  _ someone else needed to try it  _ \- it was that good - and the only other person she could think of was Eve.

She doesn’t make a habit of knowing people, in London particularly. But she knows Eve, or she’s getting there via exposure therapy or something. Painful, cathartic, expensive. Pasta.

Hm, metaphor.

What she needs, though, is to know if Eve has ever had better bolognese in her life and she needs to know now. She’d never needed to know that before, but Eve’s opinion sounds better even than the second half of the best bolognese she’d ever tasted.

Bill stares at her from the crack in his door on the opposite side of the hallway, eyes narrowed, door chain pulled taught under his nose. Villanelle stares back, she sees no reason not to.

“It’s a little late to be calling on Eve,” he points out as their staring grows awkward.

Villanelle shrugs and holds up the bolognese.

“She can feed herself,” he counters.

“That is a relief, I have never fed anyone before.”

Bill’s eyes narrow further. “I’ve got the police on speed dial, you know.”

Villanelle’s mouth purses and she gives him a confused look. “Isn’t it just three numbers?”

“I’m only holding off because I know Eve can take care of herself, but know that I’m a big old coward. And the second I think you’re up to something, I’m dialing.”

“Yes, with great speed allegedly.”

“So you can  _ skulk around _ , but we’re going to have way less problems if you tell me  _ why _ .”

Villanelle looks behind her, glances around and throws one hand up. “Have we had problems? I am not skulking, I am ringing her doorbell.”

“Why?” Bill demands  _ again. _

“I don’t know why. I just am.” And that’s mostly true, but she leaves out the part about murdering Eve, because that’s their business and nobody else’s. Everything in its time.

Bill harrumphs and leaves her with, “Figure it out.” Then he slams the door.

When Eve answers a few moments later, Villanelle reaches out for her hand, then pauses.  _ Permission _ , she thinks. Nods to herself. “Can I put something in your hand? It’s for you.” 

Eve raises a brow, then lifts her palm. “It better not be slimy.”

Villanelle cups the back of Eve’s upturned palm and sets the box of bolognese in it. “Your neighbor does not like me.”

  
“And I haven’t even told him you’re trying to kill me. What did you do?”

“I don’t skulk, do I?”

“You do! You absolutely do. What is in my hand?”

“Bolognese. I ate half of it and I realized it was the best bolognese I’ve ever had and I want to know if it’s the best you’ve ever had too. I need to be right about this.”

“And you came to me? To be right about something?” Eve moves aside for her to come in and Villanelle smiles, happy to be invited inside. She likes the way Eve always invites her in like it’s nothing when she probably knows it’s not. She was right to bring this to Eve, this is what she wanted. This was what was missing while she was sitting alone at a corner table in a twinkling, low-lit bistro with nothing but her plate and a simpering server. “What did Bill say to you?”

“He asked me why I kept coming here.”

“And did you tell him?”

“I did,” Villanelle lies, easing the container from Eve’s hands and whisking her toward the table. It’s not about the not-seeing, it’s about the hurry-up. The sooner Eve eats, the sooner Eve praises.

When Eve’s seated with Villanelle’s bolognese and a fork, captive audience in the seat across from her, she gives Villanelle a knowing look. “You don’t even know why you keep coming here,” she accuses, then stabs some of the pasta and slurps it gracelessly, the way good food was meant to be eaten - she gets it. Villanelle kind of likes the way she eats.

“I do, I know. Murder and pasta,” Villanelle denies, because pasta and murder share many simple qualities. For instance, sometimes they are red but occasionally they are not. There is meat. It makes Villanelle happy. Noodles.

Eve doesn’t say anything, she’s still deliberating and eating like Villanelle’s not staring at her intently. When she puts her fork down, she folds her hands and narrows her eyes.

“Is it the best? It’s the best isn’t it?”

“I will tell you, but only if you tell me where you were born. Every time I hear you talk, I try to place it. I think about it a lot.”

Villanelle blinks at her, surprised. “Oh. Um, Russia.” She’s not really sure why she tells her, it just happens. Not her business, but Eve’s dangling from a thin line, what’s the harm when she can cut it at any time? Eve won’t overtake her,  _ she won’t. _ Eve is smart, but Villanelle is smarter.

“A Russian assassin. How gauche.”

“I am not  _ gauche. _ You are gauche,  _ blind private eye _ . Now tell me about the pasta.”

Eve shrugs and grins. “It’s fine.”

“It’s the best! Eve, please.”

  
  


_____________________

  
  
  
  


The first time they watch a movie together, Villanelle listens quietly to the audio description for a whole uninterrupted ten minutes before it overcomes her. “Okay, okay, they are telling it all wrong!”

Eve is elbow deep in a bag of chips and shrugs like it doesn’t bother her that much. “Not like I’ll ever know it any different.”

“No, no, no. Can we turn it off? The talking, the bad telling?”

Eve laughs. “Sure, but I’ll have very little clue what’s going on. Jerk,” Eve snickers as she reaches for her remote.

“No, no, I will tell it better. Trust me, I am good at movies.”

“How can someone be good at movies?”

“I don’t know, but your talking helper is bad at them. No flare! Quiet with your sass, let me tell you.”

Eve quiets with her sass and lets Villanelle tell her.

It’s a learning curve, but Villanelle gets into it. Eve asks questions sometimes, but mostly just eats her chips and lets Villanelle wear herself out making sure Eve knows all of the best parts. It’s such an involved process, she hardly notices when Eve pulls her feet up and leans into her with a little yawn. At first she wants to tease her, because Eve isn’t the one doing all the work so what is with the yawning and the tired almost-cuddling. But the ribbing gets stuck in her throat.

“What’s happening?” Eve asks after a little while, it’s gone quiet.

Villanelle thinks it’s a fair question. She really, really likes this and not just the movie which is only  _ fine. _

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


Actually, she doesn’t know how many days it's been but Eve isn’t dead. She’s whining while Villanelle tries to teach her how to cook something. It took Villanelle a while to realize that Eve could quite easily cook something on her own, she just actively chooses not to. She eats like a tiny monster. Sewage bilge and processed snack cakes. Takeout most nights and unhealthy salted snack foods in between. At worst,  _ nothing _ , she’ll just forget. Like food is something so forgetful.

“I don’t want to set my flat on fire,” Eve complains as Villanelle puts one of her hands on the handle of a skillet and sets a spatula in the other. “Cooking is a pointless activity for me.”

“You’re lazy! And you like junk food!”

“Yes! I am and I do. May I be done now?”

“No, I like being better at something than you.”

“Well you can see better than me, can’t that be your thing?”

Villanelle shoots her an irritated look and she knows for a fact that Eve knows what’s happening, but paints a blissful smile on her face and pretends she doesn’t. She probably thinks she looks so cute. And the worst part, by and far, is that she does.

She always does.

No matter what Villanelle does, she will always be the one looking like nothing while Eve is the one unintentionally but unerringly looking effortless and beautiful and when she’s not too busy being pissed off about it, Villanelle can pause and think that maybe being nothing could be okay.

There are worse things than not being perceived, it’s like coming home at the end of the day and turning off the person-suit you’ve built. Turning off the  _ someone _ you made and wondering about whether you were ever anything at all or if you’ve just dressed a scarecrow and stuck him out in the fields to entertain the birds.

Eve doesn’t see anything, so she doesn’t have to put anything in the field at all. It’s just her and them and sometimes food and sometimes talking and sometimes not. Like being alone together.

If Eve must dress her, it’s nothing Villanelle has any say in. And she can be frustrated or anxious about it, but she can’t produce this version of herself, she doesn’t control this one thing - she  _ can’t _ .

Maybe tomorrow or in a week or in a few weeks or  _ sometime _ Eve will be dead and she’ll have to stick something out there to keep the birds away. In the meantime it’s nice not having to explain that there’s no man, there never was, just hay and clothes. A funny hat, maybe.

Villanelle’s phone rings for the first time in weeks and she almost forgets to place the ringtone as her own. By the last chime, she’s diving for it in her jacket on the hooks by the front door and scrambling to answer while Eve waives a spatula and complains she doesn’t know where the sausages are or what’s burning. Something smokes black and Villanelle curses.

“Konstantin?”

_ “Villanelle, what are you doing?” _

“I’m sorry that is a privilege reserved for people who are not pretending I don’t exist. You cannot have it both ways,” she says sweetly and prepares to hang up on him just for the aesthetic of the thing.

_ “What are you doing in this apartment building? You’re not making more trouble in London are you? We are still cleaning yesterday’s messes.” _

Villanelle’s stomach drops, the unfamiliar clench of anxiety as she dashes for the window and peers out to find Konstantin waving from the sidewalk. So he followed her and she was what? Blissfully unaware? She has never been blissful before, this is bad form.

“Okay, I am calling police. This warning is me being nice.”

_ “Stop messing around,” _ Konstantin says over the phone, but the real message is in the distant downturned pinch of his lips as he glares up at her from outside.  _ “Whatever or whoever you’re up to, drop it. You have work again, you’re no longer benched. We’re going to Palermo. And if you don’t come down, I’m coming up.” _

And he doesn’t know Eve, he wouldn’t. Villanelle didn’t give him enough. But how many blind women is Villanelle expected to know, really. She can’t have him coming up so she groans and makes an ugly face at him through the window. “Fine, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

When she hangs up, Eve is standing at the stove, all burners turned cold as she waits patiently.

Now...would be a good time.

Before Konstantin takes her or she gets busy or tied up in Paris and work and fine things,  _ now _ . She should do it now. In her mind, she tries to conjure images of it: slipping a barely-used, still-sharp carving knife from the woodblock by the sink, taking Eve’s arm in one hand then quick up through ribs four and five as she hushes her in her ear, holds her for the short minute it’d take at that angle. It forms foggy in her head.

Eve stands up straighter when Villanelle goes quiet for too long, hands at her side and chin straight. “Villanelle?” Her hands form fists and Villanelle thinks they might shake as she waits.

Ah. She thinks it too. Maybe she always thinks it, Villanelle can’t tell. She’s bad at that part.

Is Eve frightened? It’s not the payoff Villanelle thought it would be, she wants to hold her hand and swing it and say something stupid so Eve relaxes and cracks a smile.

It’s not right,  _ not yet. _

“I have work,” Villanelle sighs, gathering up her coat and her bag. “You may proceed with the garbage food, you win.”

If Eve’s delighted or relieved, she does a good job of hiding it. In fact, she really only wrangles a small disappointed smile and a little shrug as she breathes out a shaky breath. “Oh. Local work or are you traveling?”

“Do not investigate me,  _ Eve _ ,” Villanelle teases as she threads her arms through her jacket and warms the doorstep reluctantly. “I’m going to Sicily, apparently.”

“Don’t suppose I’d be your first draft for house-sitting, or I’d offer.”

“Well, I live in Paris at the moment, so if you would enjoy making daily flights to water my single plant, I will not stop you.” The plant is fake, but Eve doesn’t need to know that. It would, quite literally, never come up.

Eve’s brows raise, then furrow as she thinks it over. “I’d assumed you lived in London. Or Russia.”

“No, I don’t like London and I have prison files in Russia. They don’t want me and I have to say, the feeling is very mutual.”

Eve’s mouth opens in surprise and she works over the information in her own time,  _ oops _ . Little too much, Villanelle gambles recklessly, it’s more fun that way. “Oh,” she finally settles on. “That’s...so I guess you’re leaving London for a while then. Sorry, I just thought - yeah, I don’t know. Okay. So goodbye, I guess?”

It makes Villanelle pause too, because - well, yes. Goodbye, she supposes.

“Don’t be too happy, I have to come back. You are a very sexy piece of unfinished business.”

“Like good leftovers,” Eve agrees, leaning back against the counter. “Be safe, yeah? And stop leaving witnesses, it’s just bad form.”

Villanelle breathes out a laugh and sways on her knees on the doormat. “Please don’t make trouble, I’m supposed to have killed you by now. They don’t know you, but it won’t stay that way if you make a scene. And you are mine,  _ not _ theirs.”

“Who exactly is  _ They?” _

“Ah, nice try. Even I do not know, but they are very rich and very invested in your death. Don’t ruin it, okay? I found you first and I don’t share.” Villanelle does wonder if Eve knows how serious she is, but if she doesn’t know, she will eventually. For better or for worse or most likely, for  _ worst. _

“Right, of course,” Eve says easily, part of the game they play. “Wouldn’t want to put you out. You  _ do _ bring me food sometimes. I’ll just wait around, shall I?”

“Yes, do that, please. I can’t afford to misplace you.” Villanelle points at her feet like she’s asking a dog to sit and it’s very good Eve can’t see it, it’s very rude.

“Well, you know where to find me, to my great disappointment.”

“Yes, you’re very funny. Is that what you wanted to hear before I go?”

“Yes, thank you. Goodbye, Villanelle.”

“Until next time, Eve.”

  
  


____________________

  
  


Palermo’s shining to the point of disingenuous and it kind of pisses her off. The cerulean of the Mondello coastline like twinkling fucking stars, cute little boats bobbing in the peaceful, gem waves while locals barter fish so fresh you’d swear they could blink at you from colorful tarp-draped stands. The sun’s a warm halo in the sky and the entire town smells of food fit to make a person cry and fresh salt surf. It’s heaven. It makes her sick.

She’s probably a day or two from her period, honestly. If Konstantin calls her crabby again, she’s going to bleed on him out of spite.

Villanelle’s made a career of being a tourist, a guest in beautiful places and beautiful lives more than anything, so she’s no stranger to paradise. But it’s not doing anything for her. She feels a shining blue shade of lost and sick for something she can’t put a finger on.

“How long is this going to take?”

“You want to leave? Here? What’s wrong with you?”

Villanelle flicks fish skin at Konstantin’s beard over lunch and everything’s too beautiful for him to do more than peacefully brush it off. “I’m menstruating.”

It completely incapacitates him, which he deserves as a human incapable of talking about genitals and genital function. Villanelle basks in the awkward silence as she eyes the patisserie across the street. Normally she would be doing this for cakes, but this time she looks for a small man who wears bowties and fences for tricky people. He will not be having such a nice day.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


Villanelle catches up to him in the back kitchen of the patisserie, baiting him closer under the guise of a flustered ingenue incapable of telling the kitchen doors from the toilets. He’s only too happy to help, only too happy to push too far into her space, run sweet-sticky fingers along her forearm catching like fly traps as he breathes stale breath in her face.

And she hopes it was worth it, because that’s the last thing he feels before she’s pushing a slim, gold and pearl-inlaid pocket knife sharpened to simple, sleek elegance right up under the line of his jaw. He hiccups as it pokes up under his soft palate, then she carves him a wide smile from ear to ear, bright and shiny like the fucking immaculate beaches of his seaside town. He bleeds red like the perfect macaroons in the glass case of his shop, sticky like his fingers down through the choke of his bowtie and further.

Villanelle stands there watching blood leak lazily past the point of pulse and push because she likes to watch. If you’re going to cause a scene -  _ and she is _ \- what was the point if you don’t look back and admire. A man is dead and she doesn’t care. But she will watch.

Could she kill Eve like this? If you mean it sincerely enough, a cut throat isn’t the worst of it - it’s actually quick from pain to black. Personal.

Though you can’t hear a person if you do that and she knows herself. She’d hang on Eve’s last words like last bites, final meal.  _ Execution. _

It actually distresses her as she pictures it, no, no, no, all wrong. Messy, cruel,  _ no. _ That is not the end waiting for Eve Polastri, it isn’t. Eve has time yet and grace yet and is deserving of nicer things, if Villanelle can’t do this right when it really matters, then what has been the point of being the best at it.

She wouldn’t see it coming. She’d be touching Villanelle’s arm or saying something stupid but kind of funny or leaning on Villanelle’s shoulder and she wouldn’t know what was  _ going to happen. _ Ugh.

It has nothing to do with the blindness, it’s about the costumes Villanelle wears. And she likes this one. She likes  _ them _ and what  _ them _ makes her. It’s her favorite  _ Her _ yet!

Nature of murder, really. 

It’s fine work. Fun even, the way games and chase are, but it’s not the way Konstantin dresses it up as. It’s not fitted diamonds, it’s cubic zirconia stuck tight past an ill-fitted knuckle. She likes it, but she doesn’t  _ love _ it.

“I want to go home,” she later tells Konstantin over a celebratory dinner she doesn’t want.

“A few days and you’re free of me,” he mutters back, sour and drunk the way he seems to prefer.

Villanelle has spent a lot of time staring at him, his sleepless bruised eyes, his patchy beard, the twist of his mouth like her presence tastes bad. She’s spent a lot of time staring and being stared at, but she’s not sure she’s ever seen him. She thinks the sticky pearl knife in her pocket means about as much to her as she means to him and maybe it should hurt after years of his company and a hundred shared meals, but it’s a bit of a relief. She’s seen him and he’s seen nothing and if she’s ever to cut him off it’ll feel more like trimming a nail than severing a limb.

She’s known Eve only a short time and that’ll probably feel worse.

Villanelle wants to go home.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


She sulks around Mondello a few more days, receding into Palermo and drifting around Sicily to sulk where her money’s worth less. There’s a good deal to look at - expensive Persian rugs and ceramics, handmade shoes and fine arts. Villanelle wonders what Eve would do in Sicily. What she’d like or if she’d like it at all. She’s so bad at liking things.

She’s a grumpy little shit.

Villanelle laughs out loud and it pisses off a lady selling handmade jewelry, insults her hopefully. 

She leaves the shop and tries to feel her way around instead, putting her hands all over things to see if they have any worth beyond their shine and yes, she gets told off a few times. But she also finds the softest handmade cashmere blanket that she’d gladly live in and pays the exorbitant price  _ just because _ . She finds an almond wine with a bloated price tag that tastes unique and perfect and she buys enough to horde. She finds a candle with a delicate, imperceptibly soft scent she wishes a place she called home would smell like and buys that too.

It would seem there are things worth  _ not seeing _ . It inspires a strange anxiety in her and she realizes she needs to know if Eve will like what she’s felt out.

Then she’s gathered like a briefcase and put on a plane back to Paris.

  
  


____________________

  
  


She comes home and her flat smells weird like it always does when she’s been away too long. The lights are all off and she leaves them that way, dumping her bags in a corner and flopping back onto her mattress with a silent sigh.

After a long while, she pushes up on her elbows and glances about the place, pursing her lips. She comes to a conclusion.

“No, that’s not it.”

Like masturbating and realizing you’re actually just hungry.

By the next day, her bags are packed again and she’s on another plane.

  
  


____________________

  
  


She’s waiting at an upscale bar lounge in Charles de Gaulle on call for the next little jump flight with first class seats open when Konstantin phones her. She rolls her eyes. If she wanted a hovering husband, she’d go get one.

“What? I just got rid of you,” she answers, swirling her glass of Dom Pérignon.

_ “Where are you? Your doorman says you’ve left with suitcases again.” _

“Would you mind your business?”

_ “You are my business. My most lucrative business, please stop jumping on planes whenever you’re bored or cranky.” _

Villanelle forgets to appreciate her drink and tosses it back just for something to do with her hands. “Unless you have a job, my time is my own. Goodbye,” she sings, but he’s barreling over her quickly and it’s too late.

_ “I have a lead on Trotter’s witness. Sort of. Okay, I’m working on a lead. So if that’s what’s making you cranky, don’t worry, I will take care of it. I’m good at taking care of things. I take care of you, don’t I?” _

Villanelle frowns. “I guess.”

_ “Not guess. Know. You know I do. Look at all of your nice things.” _

“I do have nice things,” Villanelle agrees, but she’s just not sure. “You’re never around, though.”

_ “Why would you want me around when you have everything you’ve ever wanted?” _ He laughs, but Villanelle doesn’t join him.  _ “We are a good team, Villanelle. It’s why you get good jobs, because they trust me with you.” _

“I get good jobs because I do a  _ good job _ .” Villanelle snaps back.

Konstantin laughs again and she wants him to stop doing that.  _ “You’re good, but anyone can kill a person. It happens every day. You’re  _ the best _ because I make you that way.” _

Villanelle doesn’t say anything, just stares out the glass windows at jets as they bumble slowly past on tiny wheels. She doesn’t want to be here anymore.

_ “I’ll smooth it over with them, I promise. See? I am good to you, you should be nicer. Do me a favor and whatever you’re doing, stay out of London. Okay?” _

“Why would I ever willingly go to London?” Villanelle sighs as she collects her jacket and makes for a terminal to board a flight.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


Eve isn’t home or isn’t answering her buzzer when Villanelle gets there, which is a bit of a letdown. In movies, when you think about someone when they’re away, they’re always there waiting for you upon your return. Life should be more like movies.

Villanelle could let herself in, but she finds herself waiting on the front stoop, head in her hands as she watches locals bustle by without eye contact. A university student offers to let her into the building and the encroaching chill makes her agree. Maybe Eve is sleeping or something, she keeps weird hours, something about circadian rhythm.

Villanelle could scare her. It’s funny in her head, but then she thinks about the very real possibility it could scare Eve too bad and then Eve will be mad and she won’t know how to fix that.

She doesn’t know the rules well enough to break them yet, but she wants to.

Eve’s apartment is easy to get into, just a locked handle,  _ really, Eve? _ Aye, there are people who want her  _ dead _ and she cannot be bothered to lock a deadbolt. It would be so easy to kill her, she must know this.

Villanelle finds the flat much as it always is, like ordered clutter. Neat and not at the same time, takeout refuse stacked high in the bin. No Eve.

Sighing mournfully, Villanelle takes the opportunity to snoop around Eve’s desk and she’s not surprised - there’s no way she could be - but she’s...affected.

Because there are reports and evidence logs and William Trotter’s bloated dead face staring at her from crime scene photos. The photos are discarded on the edge of the desk and reports sit naked under her reader,  _ she’s snooping. _ Which makes sense, Eve is a professional snoop. To snoop is to be.

But under Eve’s desk is a box with yellow, Russian script labels dated and resealed over decades of being passed around and Villanelle is not a betting woman - gambling, how boring - but she might be inclined to bet that if a young Oksana Astankova is not in this box, then she will be in the next box, or the next box, or the next. Eve is tenacious and smart and operating with a very dangerous form of tenuous immunity: Villanelle’s fleeting affections.

_ This _ is the knife in Villanelle’s ribs. Or it could be, but it will be pushed in very, very slow. And the only way something like that could possibly kill someone as quick as her is if Villanelle lets it.  _ She won’t _ . But there’s no harm in waiting a bit, yes?

She really did miss her.

Daylight grows stale, waxing almost completely through the dusty slats of Eve’s unused blinds by the time Eve returns. She’s throwing her jacket at the kitchen table the way she always does and Villanelle stands, running her tongue over her teeth and thinking about what she’d like to say. She wants to say something clever. She wants that exasperated fondness. She wants casual and she wants them.

She ruins it immediately, of course, when Eve turns and Villanelle sees the state of her.

“What happened?!” She demands, reaching for Eve’s shoulders. “Are you -  _ fuck!” _

Eve flinches back out of reach, then cracks her knees with the flat of her cane. Not at all how she pictured reunion.

_ “Ow!” _ Eve rears back for another go at her and Villanelle can’t fight the pointless instinct to raise her hands defensively. “Okay, okay, it’s Villanelle! Please stop with the maiming. I’m sorry for grabbing you.”

And her kneecaps are spared another go, but she’s not spared the scared look on Eve’s face as she falters and breathes heavily, cane wobbling in her nervous hands. When her brain catches up, she deflates and laughs too high. “Jesus, what the hell. I told you I don’t have superpowers. You scared the shit out of me.”

“What happened to your face!” She’s about to reach out again, but her hands hover awkwardly, unsure if she’s allowed.

“What happened to yours?”

“Eve!”

“Manhole, Charlie Chaplin slapstick style. You would’ve loved it, jerkface.”

And yes, it’s funny, very clever Eve, but she’s sporting a wicked black eye, curved with the ridge of her cheekbone, and little butterfly bandages along her left arm and wrapped around her fingers like jewelry. Villanelle forces herself to slow and keep her hands to herself. “You fought a  _ manhole? _ And it fought back? Please. Why are you picking fights?”

“My therapist says it’s just pure, repressed rage. I’m violently explosive with nothing to lose.”

“Eve,” Villanelle sighs. “Can I touch you or are you going to assault me again?”

“Come find out.”

Eve’s brows scrunch and her cheeks twitch when Villanelle’s fingers find the settled swell of the days old bruising and trace the line of her cheek. “Who did this?”

“You think you’re good at making enemies? I ruin bad people’s lives for a living,” she says with a wry twist to her lips. “Sometimes they hold a bit of a grudge. And what the hell are you doing in my apartment? You better not have been looking through my stuff again.”

“What stuff?  _ Research _ stuff?”

Eve’s brow creases and she gives her a stern look. “Oh, you asshole. I’m just looking!”

“Looking? Whatever you’re doing, you’re certainly not doing  _ that.” _

“It’s only funny when I say it,” Eve snaps, whacking the back of her hand into Villanelle’s gut. “I’m curious by nature. You keep telling me interesting things.”

“Because I’m going to  _ kill _ you. Do you want it to happen faster?”

Eve groans and shucks her coat off before throwing it somewhere. Always, Villanelle will wonder how she ever finds it. “You might not have to. Seems people are elbowing in on your territory,  _ killer _ .”

“Who did this?” she demands again.

Eve considers her in that way of hers and Villanelle wonders if she’s being transparent. Eve is shrewd, she must know what she’s giving away. The question is, why does she give it anyways? She’s playing games.

“Robert Taft,” she offers after a long moment, face serious as she offers it. “Decades of smoothed over sexual misconduct. Not so smooth now.” She pauses and her face relaxes as she shrugs. “I hope his potshot made him feel better. Hope it sustains him while he’s locked up in violation of bail. Fucker.”

Villanelle stores the information away and is so busy filing, she fails to prepare for the way Eve reaches for her. All she can do is watch like an idiot when Eve’s palm collides with her stomach and she pats at what she’s found, smiling. “I’m glad you’re back. Isn’t that weird?”

Villanelle thinks it’d be nice if she knew how to take her hand, she would probably like it a lot. “It’s weird,” she agrees quietly.

  
  


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The worst part, by far, is that Eve’s bought a bunch of inane ingredients that she thinks can make a meal with the flustered confession that she thought if Villanelle ever came back they could have a go at the cooking thing again. What is she supposed to do with that?

Eve’s presenting her with cabbage she doesn’t know is purple like the holy fucking grail and she’s already planning the way she’s going to pull Robert Taft’s insides out.

Villanelle’s gifts are better, she wins. She had spent days feeling her way around Sicily for them and she’s in a rare state of bursting at the seams as she explains each one. Villanelle wraps the blanket around Eve’s shoulders and demands to know what it feels like to her. Demands to know what the almond wine tastes like to her. Demands to know what the candle smells like to her. She wants to know she did well. She has to be the best at this and she wants Eve to know it.

Eve is teasing and dismissive in that way of hers, but something shifts as Villanelle talks and talks, and she swallows her jokes.

“You have good taste,” she concedes. “Do you really need me to tell you that?”

“No.” Villanelle thinks about it, then hums. “I need to know you like them. You’re weird and I don’t know if I did it right. I know the gifts are good, I want to know  _ you _ like them.”

“Of course I like them.” Eve laughs and tucks her nose into the blanket around her shoulders. “And I’m not weird. You’re the one blindly feeling your way around a place as beautiful as Sicily.”

“Sicily is ugly,” Villanelle scoffs. “I am beautiful.”

“Yeah right. Beautiful people don’t have to try so hard. I bet you look like a shoe.”

  
  


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Robert Taft begs - they do that sometimes, you know.

And it’s funny because he acts like she’s rode up on a white horse, just and divine and capable of redemptive mercy he certainly doesn’t deserve. But she’s not. She’s there because she doesn’t share well. She’s there because she’s not very nice and this is how she handles problems.

Maybe she’s unaccustomed to wanting things that can’t be bought, but where money fails, violence rarely has. If he wants to take this from her, he should expect to have the cartilage in his throat crushed to pulp by the wound bed sheet in her fists. Eve is hers and  _ she _ will decide when and where she will meet the dropoff into nothingness. It’s a simple equation.

The begging doesn’t help.

  
  
  
  
  
  


____________________

xxx.

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	3. xxx. something you taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "this is nothing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the skipped week, life goes on for the folks helping me out. but its all written and will be seen through to the end if that's something that worries you. thank you for all the nice comments - as always, you're peaches.

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xxx. something you taste

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Over breakfast, Eve points out that Taft was killed in lockup and gives her a knowing look over her tea. Her eye is now ringed in a mossy shade of green. She’s switched her bandages from beige to neon pink. Villanelle wonders if she knows they’re pink or if she just grabbed the wrong ones. She thinks either possibility is cute.

“Maybe there is karma, then.”

Eve hums doubtfully. “You’d better hope not.”

“And what do I deserve? You’re so full of opinions.”

Eve eyes her vaguely over their breakfast for long moments, then cracks into a little laugh. “I don’t know. We don’t know each other like that.”

It makes Villanelle pause, because she doesn't really know if that’s true or not. If she looked at Eve’s vision of her, would it look like her reflection? Would it look better,  _ worse? _

Villanelle’s head cocks to the side and she considers her. “You know the most important part of me. The  _ bad _ part.”

Eve chews messily on a crisp piece of bacon,  _ burnt _ , she’d insisted. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d like what?”

“If that was the most important part of you. But you know what? We don’t really talk about it. That’s not what I see of you.”

Villanelle narrows her eyes for all the good it does. “Don’t piss me off. The only reason you’re still alive is you’re interesting. Annoy or bore me and see what happens.”

“You never talk about it either. Not really. You joke about it.” Eve’s not really looking an assassin in the eye, but she also is. Credit where credit is due.

“And you joke about being blind, what is your very boring point?”

“I’m saying sometimes we’re our small parts and not our big parts. The big parts aren’t always the epithet. Sometimes the big parts are just punchlines. Or outfits we wear.” She smiles down at her plate and laughs at something Villanelle’s not privy to. “I like your small parts.” Her nose wrinkles. “Even if your big parts want me very dead.”

“Are we still talking about me killing people?”

“If you’d like. I’m happy to play along if you want to hide behind that. I’m  _ very _ good at repression, I’ve been told. Imploded a marriage over it, actually.”

Villanelle rolls her eyes and twirls her fork. “No, I’m more fond of hiding behind designer clothes and sex. If that is indeed, as you say,  _ hiding. _ ”

“Well, I can’t see any of those things.” A genuinely curious look crosses Eve’s expression. “So what do you think I see of you?”

For a long while, Villanelle’s stuck on the question. It’s a lot to ask of a person, but she’s good at slipping the noose. “Well, I could show you the sex part.”

Predictably, Eve’s tickled to laughter, she’s a good sport like that. It’s only half of a joke, though, they could have a great time the two of them. And Villanelle wouldn’t regret it, she’s sure, but she wants to give Eve something nicer than a good fuck. She wants to see her when she feels like it, she wants to be more than a scarecrow in a field, she wants to  _ keep _ her. She’s bad at keeping people she fucks and worse at people she  _ should really be killing. _

“You know, you’re a very strange mix of sweet and gross. I think you might be insane.”

“It’s probably why I’m such a good lay.”

A server materializes on that note, probably with the intention of asking them if they need anything, but he kind of freezes and forgets to do anything, dropper of eaves that he is. Villanelle blinks lazily, begging him to get on with it.

“Uh, um-”

“Well I’m not going to fuck  _ you _ ,” Villanelle eventually supplies. “What do you want?”

He flees.

Eve’s still laughing, even though other diners are staring. They must make quite a scene and it’s nice to share it with someone who doesn’t seem to care. “God, you are a psychologist’s wet dream.”

“I’m  _ everyone’s _ wet dream.”

“Oh, yeah? Well good for you, Romeo,” Eve chuckles. She twirls a curl of her own hair around her finger absently, tugging as she watches her. “So why don’t you like to be seen?”

“I love to be seen.”

“No, you like to be looked at.”

“Okay, fine. I like to be looked at. So why do we even hang out?” Villanelle gestures at herself with her fork. “I’m wearing McQueen and you’re talking about my small parts.”

“I don’t know why we hang out. I don’t know how to find you. You know how to find me,” Eve points out.

“And you don’t see anything.”

Eve smirks, but it softens when she’s met with extended silence. “Are you sure?”

She has no idea and the thread is dropped, they eat quietly, in their own heads, spaces barely touching. It’s the first time she’s wondered just what Eve sees. If she’s not seeing, what does a thing like Villanelle look like? What are the  _ small things? _

She stares at Eve’s face. It betrays nothing.

Fine. They can play.

Villanelle clears her throat.

“A throat is more fragile than most people think. You can do it with your hands if you’re fit. If you’re not, a garotte will do it with barely more force than wringing a wet towel. It’s amazing people fail at it. I’ve never found it hard.” She says.

Eve’s face is thoughtful, calculating. She’s seeing it and that lights a vindicated fire in Villanelle’s chest - she puts her finger on it. Eve doesn’t know what it looks like when a person’s life is wrung from them like dishwater. She doesn’t know what it looks like and worse, she doesn’t know what Villanelle looks like as she does it. Eve has no idea who she’s having breakfast with, she’s just imagined it. She thinks death is an  _ outfit. _ She doesn’t know anything. She’s dressed the scarecrow wrong.

“They flop like fish. When they’ve blacked out and their body’s fighting without them, it’s like a big ugly fish on dry land. Spasms. They drool too. And their eyes bulge all weird. If your hands sit high enough and push up against the arteries there, their eyes pop red and you can see the little capillaries bleed. The noises are weird. It’s kind of embarrassing how quick a person can go from talking to wet groaning and flapping in about a minute. If you crush anything, it feels-”

“Stop.”

Villanelle stops. They’ve both put their silverware down.

“Is that how you’d like to be killed?”

Eve sighs, “Villanelle…”

“Or maybe you’d like something flashier? I’m great with a knife. If you know where to open a person, it can be the difference between hours of flopping and minutes of painless surprise. In Palermo I -”

“Villanelle,” Eve cuts her off, stern but not aggressively so. “You’re kind of ruining breakfast. I like talking to you, but not when you’re trying to play me. I’m not an instrument.” She picks her utensils back up and takes another bite of her food, undeterred even after the picture that’s been painted for her. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable before. Don’t be mean. I missed you.”

She shouldn’t, she’s never been more blind than she’s being in this moment. Whatever Eve thinks she’s seeing, Villanelle can’t guess at. Eve can’t even  _ see _ the good parts: the exorbitant dress she wears, the way her hair is braided, the pretty smile she paints on, the flawless cut of her silhouette.

What  _ exactly _ did Eve miss?

  
  
  


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It’s a routine. Or call it a compulsion, whatever, what does it matter.

Villanelle takes last minute flights, gathers Eve for a meal, and tells her something awful. Describes the thing she’s done down to the detail. Makes her see. Rips it out from under her, maybe.

It’s not confessional because she offers no repentance and Eve offers no absolution. It’s just the honesty Villanelle offers everyone else. Even strangers see her in the end, the very worst of her, and Eve should too. She needs to  _ get it right. _

After these grisly details, Eve will tell her something innocuous like, “My boyfriend in college cheated on me and I had sex with his sister. I meant to rub it in his face, but never really got around to it.” Or, “I cheated on an astronomy exam once. I refused to waste my time on studying for that.” Or, “They tried to get me to apply for a service animal, but I seriously hate dogs and I don’t know how to tell people that.” Or, “I was honestly kind of relieved when my husband left me.” Or, “I like your voice, even when you’re trying to be annoying. You chew too loud, though.” Or, “I always hated mornings and now I miss sunrises I never woke up for anyways, which is stupid.”

Just. Things between them.

And they’re mostly small. There’s only so much to say about  _ murder _ , she finds. The more she tries to explain it, the more its dimensions shrink. But she needs Eve to see it to, however simple or complicated, large or small it may be. She’s not exactly a housepet, it’s important even if Eve doesn’t think so.

But the only thing worse than Eve not seeing her right could very well be Eve seeing her  _ exactly _ right. Villanelle would like to live somewhere in the middle. Comfortable between what she’s done and who she’s had to be to do it. Space on either side so they’re never too close to the way she likes blood in her teeth or the way she lies awake at night thinking it’d be nice to care about something or even be capable of it.

  
  
  


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Villanelle’s vices are more ephemeral, but Eve’s stay true. She drinks. Heartily.

She’s not a mean drunk, it just quiets her and softens edges Villanelle recognizes the feel of. She recognizes them the way Eve might, really, like hands running over them rather than eyes.

Eve’s always thinking. And then with enough Gordon’s, she’s not so much, or not in the same ways. Sure, she’ll trip on furniture that hasn’t been moved, but she does it like she’s happy to.

It’s almost like she’s relieved.

Even past her limit, she just gets sleepy or honest or affectionate. She tries to give her weird things from her pantry like boxed pasta meals or cans of vegetables or sauces she believes to be soups, because she feels thin when she hugs her. It’s stupid, but it’s nice.

Strangely, Eve usually drinks before calling the many, many people she calls on  _ business _ , or however Eve categorizes her burrowing, her meddling, her dangerous hunger for things she shouldn’t have or know but trades like retail goods. Eve doesn’t like asking for things but she’s good at it and she’s not afraid to be drunk when she does. It’s belligerent magic. Eve is a wizard. She’s a network of information and favors and strangers drifting and tugging unseen along her spiderweb and it gives Villanelle pause sometimes.

Does anyone know what Eve is? There’s a web running under continental Europe and it’s center is in an ugly, cheap flat in London being manipulated by a ghost who likes chips more than food.

Villanelle doesn’t care to learn people - she’s never seen someone in sharp relief and felt anything but regret for it or a longing for poorer resolution. She’s trying very hard for Eve to see the same in her, but she’s failing.

Eve keeps giving her canned vegetables. Sauces, too. Eve tries to braid her hair from muscle memory and asks how it looks. It looks awful. She lies and says it’s great. Eve doesn’t believe her, she did it badly on purpose. Villanelle has failed her weird little test.

Villanelle saw Konstantin and he turned out to be a lonely man convinced people were doomed to disappoint and betray him after a lifetime of pulling the trigger first. He thinks a friend is a thing quietly and easily used. Villanelle saw Anna and she turned out to be a sinkhole dressed as a repressed whore, endlessly hungry and cruel when Villanelle needed something,  _ anything _ resembling kindness. Villanelle saw her mother and she turned out to be a ghost dressed in meat, cold to the touch and buzzing with frequencies only ever tuned to regurgitated affection and brilliant cruelty in ways advantageous to her whims and fancies.

She sees Eve and doesn’t really mind. The worst of her appears to be canned soup and furniture tripping. She’s one of the only people in the world with power and no money.

She describes death to Eve and Eve says on the balance beam of three sensible drinks, “Well, at the end of the day, most of us make our livings on the lives of others. You’re not some great liar. You’re actually quite honest.”

After four she says, “I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of  _ snakes. _ ”

After five she says, “If it’s possible to miss someone, though, I think I’ll miss you.”

  
  


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Eve’s pretty.

Villanelle thinks it a lot. And yes, she’s a lecherous, red-blooded sexual being with alternatively distinguished and indiscriminate tastes, but for whatever reason, she can’t quite bring herself to cop to the weird, tame way she looks at Eve sometimes and thinks,  _ she’s pretty. _

It’s kind of a weird thing to say to someone. Has she ever?

Not without ulterior or vulgar motive.

Every time she’s peeled herself away from London, she drifts around hotel rooms three times the size of Eve’s entire flat and wonders why she hasn’t told her that. Telling her about women she fucks her frustrations out on over public meals is funny and easy. She starts there. She even tells her about Anna for some reason and Eve pins it bullseye when she says,

“What a cunt.”

Eve tells her about Niko and how kind he was and the sinkhole of hating it and hating herself for hating it. Villanelle thinks she pins it bullseye too when she says,

“What a cunt.”

None of these things are real substitutes for telling Eve she’s pretty, but that’s what keeps leaving her mouth, so that’s what they’re stuck with. Sometimes Villanelle sits in elegant suites and stares at herself in mirrors and gives herself a tired look. She doesn’t understand it.

  
  


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Villanelle isn’t fond of bars unless she’s there to pick company for an evening. That’s more like shopping than mingling, though. You don’t hang out in a grocery store, you get your food and you leave.

But Eve hangs out in grocery stores, apparently, and Villanelle’s trying this thing where she entertains another person’s interests. It is so boring.

This is to say, they are in a bar and Villanelle is sitting there like an idiot, not trying to fuck anyone at all. She is drinking like it’s an activity.

Eve’s still pretty and Villanelle still hasn’t told her.

These are all things that are happening.

Also, the bartender is flirty, smooth voice and smooth words and  _ he _ seems much closer to telling Eve she’s pretty than Villanelle’s ever gotten, so  _ there’s that _ .

Eve laughs at something Barman says as he tells her to hold on and slides down the counter to get someone else a drink and do his job. Which everyone would benefit greatly from if he did more than once per hour.

“You know,” Eve says, turning back to Villanelle. How nice! She remembers she exists in the stupid bar she’s stupid-brought them to. “You can just admit you’re having a terrible time and we can leave.”

“I’ve been told being miserable is the better part of valor when it comes to friendship.”

“You know, you are the exact kind of friend I deserve.”

Villanelle swirls the ice around the vodka she’s barely touched. “I’m assuming that is not a compliment to either of us.”

“At least you never ask me stupid blind questions. The dreaded  _ how. _ The dreaded  _ what. _ Your self-obsession and borderline sociopathy are strangely comforting to me? Although, you did think I had superpowers, which was kind of funny.”

Villanelle shrugs. “Well, you don’t ask me stupid questions about killing people. The why and the  _ how _ , as you say. Which is weird, because you’re very passionate about  _ why. _ ”

“Oh, that reminds me. Why?”

Villanelle rolls her eyes, surely Eve feels it. “Anyone can kill, Eve.”

“I can?” She gestures at herself with a very theatrical level of incredulity. “Alright coach, point me in their direction, we’ll see.”

“You’re already pointed in a direction.” Villanelle sips at her drink pointedly and upon remembering Eve can’t see the way she’s shooting demonstrable glances in Barman’s direction, she clarifies. “Kill Barman. It’s always easiest to kill someone who wants to fuck you. That’s when they’re most vulnerable.”

“What’s your problem with him?” Eve laughs.

“It’s just embarrassing,” Villanelle gripes. “He’s so bad at seduction and you are barely fighting him off.”

“Oh,  _ right.” _ Eve snaps, then wags a finger. “I forgot I’m talking to god’s gift to women.”

Villanelle scoffs. “God would never give  _ me _ as a gift. But they would be fortunate to receive it. He’s trying too hard. You know what women want?” When Eve doesn’t respond, she snickers. “I am asking for real, it is...not so nice.”

“You? Not so nice? I have to hear this.” Eve puts her drink down carefully and turns to face her like she’s ready for her lesson.

Class is in session. “Women want to think they’ve slid just under the bar. They want to know that you’re picky and they’ve  _ just _ achieved minimum standards. Nobody wants to level down, Eve.”

Eve has to lean on her elbow, she’s laughing so hard. “I’m sorry are you saying your best game is  _ negging them?” _

“I do not know what that means. If you’re easily won, nobody wants you. You know what makes designer clothes better? Very little except the price tag.” Villanelle gestures about the place with her glass. “There’s value in...hm,  _ value. _ You only have to command it. _ ” _

“Oh, you are so full of shit!” Eve beats her about the thigh with playful force, then squeezes and Villanelle is entranced.

She’s still staring at the point of connection when she makes a stupid barter. “I have better  _ ‘game’ _ than anyone in this bar and possibly anyone in London. Because that’s all it is to me: a game. I like winning.”

Eve’s mouth screws up in a cute, bitten-back suspicious look, then she leans in. “Okay, try on me. Pick me up, I’m  _ dying _ to see you in action. Show me.”

And that’s...not what Villanelle was expecting. Or anything she’s sure she can do, because that’s just - that’s not how they -

“It doesn’t work that way,” she defends. “It’s not something I can...show. It’s something you feel and you can’t feel it because I told you how it works.” Flipping her wrist, she grasps at the sensation with desperate fingers. “Eh, more than feel. It’s something you  _ taste.” _

The bar quiets in a lull and Eve seems to chew over what she’s heard, blinking as her mind shuffles the information. Villanelle likes the way she does that and is therefore unprepared for the way Eve stops, faces her fully and asks with naked honesty, “Okay. Can I kiss you?”

There are no thoughts in her head when her mouth says, “Yes.” None whatsoever.

It’s been made explicit what’s about to happen before it happens, but she’s still not really sure what’s happening when Eve reaches a hand out and finds her in the area of her collarbone, establishing and anchoring. From there, she’s found her hold. Her hand drifts around the curve of Villanelle’s shoulder, then smooths up the side of her neck to get a soft hold of her jaw and hold her still while she kisses her.

If that is, in fact, what is happening.

Okay, it is. Eve kisses her for some reason and Villanelle’s first inane thought when Eve’s other hand crumples and ruins the press of her jacket lapel while her tongue brushes her lips is,  _ I wonder if this can count as telling Eve she’s pretty. _

It’s kind of the same thing, right?

Eve pulls back just a breath from Villanelle’s mouth and she breathes a thoughtful hum before pressing in harder. Villanelle feels she’s losing ground, a bit unmoored and she has to brace a hand on Eve’s thigh and the other snaps out to hold the bartop. Villanelle’s never really been a fan of the taste of gin, but it’s growing on her. She’s sure she’ll taste it on her teeth for weeks.

Eve pulls back again and Villanelle thinks for the first time in her life that it’s a  _ really _ good thing she can’t be looked at at the moment. She feels ruffled.

Eve seems fine, she puts one more kiss on the corner of Villanelle’s mouth, then leans back into the space of her own seat. Her mouth purses critically and her eyes swing upward toward the ceiling in thought.

“Hm. You know?” Eve smacks her lips obnoxiously. “I don’t taste it,” she shrugs, picking her drink back up like nothing happened.

Villanelle stares at the side of her head.

  
  
  


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As fate would have it, Villanelle is forced from London that night after a brisk call with Konstantin and an unavoidable time crunch of a job. She orders sapphire gin from a flight attendant at a cruising altitude of 10,000 meters, cloudblind to bits of northern Europe as she sails past, because she figures it’s like having a song in your head: you might as well listen to it. It’s not going anywhere.

  
  


___________________

  
  
  
  


The job’s short, the stay is shorter, Konstantin is confused, “Why are you always rushing away? You’re not freelancing are you? They’ll find out if you are. It won’t be good.”

“I do not  _ freelance,” _ Villanelle sneers, swiveling her suitcase down the opposite terminal. He’s going to visit his daughter and she’s going to none of his business. “I’m meeting a friend.”

“You don’t have friends.”

Villanelle glares over her shoulder, eager to cut their time short. The feckless veneer of camaraderie they’d glued over the two of them years ago has begun to chip. She’s not happy to see him anymore, she’s realized. She was just happy to pretend she was happy to see someone.

And she misses  _ London _ , of all things. She misses someone happy to see her.

“I have one friend. You should try it sometime,” she snipes, quickening her pace away from him.

Konstantin scoffs behind her. “Yes, for how long, though.”

  
  


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It had felt like maybe something new would be waiting for her when she got back to London and arrived breathless on Eve’s doorstep. But Eve answers the door with her hip and her foot, hands otherwise occupied by a massive box of lo mein noodles that she’s shoveling gracelessly into her mouth. It is not sexy or romantic. “What?”

Who answers their door like that?

“It’s me.”

“Yes, I see that. Hello,  _ you. _ ”

Villanelle puffs her cheeks out, frustrated. “It’s Villanelle.”

“Hm?  _ Villanelle _ ? Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“You kissed me in a bar last week, does that help?” Villanelle braces her hands on the side frames of the door, leaning in to frown at her,  _ she knows. _

Eve flips her fork, aloof. “I kiss a lot of people in bars, sorry. Mustn’t have been memorable. You can come in, though.”

This is...not how she wanted this to go. Eve presents her with a conciliatory second fork and offers the tub of noodles when they sit together on the couch. Petulantly, she stuffs her mouth from the opposite side of the container, establishing boundaries.

The kiss doesn’t come up again and it annoys her.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


“Was it not good for you?” Villanelle demands after two days of  _ nothing. _

Eve’s eyes flick with her thoughts, she’s confused. Okay, fine, apparently only Villanelle has thought about this nonstop. “What?”

“The kiss! I’m very good at kissing and okay, your joke was very funny but I want you to tell me how good I am now. I cannot just wait for you to come around to it. I cannot risk you forgetting to tell me I’m very good.”

“Ah, right,” Eve nods. Well at least she remembers, Villanelle thinks sourly. “Yeah, sure.”

_ Yeah sure. _

“No, not  _ sure,” _ Villanelle seethes. Everywhere they go, they seem to find a way to get people to stare at them. Today’s staring venue is the grocery store where Eve is stocking up on mysterious cans that will inevitably end up at Villanelle’s Paris flat in a shrine to Eve’s drunken generosity. “It was sexy!”

“Yeah,” Eve shrugs. “Okay.”

She puts a can of ravioli in her cart like a fun little surprise for later. At this point, Villanelle’s fairly certain the can thing is an elaborate long con, Eve does like her jokes.

“If you had any idea how hot I am you would not let me go like this. It is hilarious how hot I am and how little you know of it.”

“Right,” Eve says, but it sounds more like,  _ doubt it. _ “Can you point me toward a vegetable? It’s been a while. I should probably eat one.”

A harried woman with two children walks by close enough to be treated to Villanelle body-blocking Eve from the lettuce and asking, “Do I need to get an affidavit from everyone I have ever fucked? Because I will. It will take a while - like a  _ long _ while - but I will.”

Eve’s laughs right in her beautiful face. “Oh my god, I want that so badly.”

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


It comes to her later when they’re watching a cooking competition show as she watches Eve run fingers over the refreshable braille display pushing output into her fingertips. It’s not something she uses a lot, just more cool robots Villanelle wants to learn how to use. She’s lost in it, only glancing up occasionally between articles to ask questions about something that’s been cooked or a person that’s gotten themselves into a bind.

She watches Eve’s fingers, then inspiration strikes.

“Wait, can’t you just feel my face?” She slips Eve’s computer from her lap, then pulls her to sit facing Villanelle on the couch, wrists held loosely in her grasp. “You know, use your hands and touch my face and then you’ll know I’m beautiful. Or is that a stupid movie thing?”

One of Eve’s eyebrows shoots up and she does that absent studying thing she does. Villanelle is pleasantly surprised when she shrugs and twists her hands palm up in Villanelle’s grasp. “Alright.”

Excited, Villanelle lifts Eve’s hands and places them so Eve’s fingertips land on her cheeks. Eve’s face is serious as she takes a deep breath and begins tracing the dips and curves of Villanelle’s face. Her thumbs brush over Villanelle’s eyebrows and the tips of her fingers are featherlight down the bridge of her nose. It feels kind of nice.

After what seems like forever, Eve’s fingers still, spread across Villanelle’s cheeks, then push back to rest on the sides of her face. Then they don’t move.

“So?” Villanelle breathes out.

Eve leans in closer, expression shrewd. Her voice is a near whisper. “This is nothing.” Then she pinches Villanelle’s nose.

“What?”

Her expression shifts, bemused as her fingertips slip from her cheeks, sift once through Villanelle’s loose hair, then fall into her own lap. “I’m not a bat, Villanelle. I don’t have echolocation. Congrats on the face, though. Definitely feels like a face. That’s my expert opinion.”

Villanelle throws her hands up. “I’m sexy! You are such an arsehole.”

“Okay, you’re sexy,” Eve concedes, but it’s written all over her face, she doesn’t believe her. Or she doesn’t care, what’s the difference. “You want to feel my face? Will that help?”

“You know what your problem is?”

Eve’s cheeks pinch in a giddy smile. “Please tell me, I would  _ love _ to hear your take.”

“You like me for all the wrong reasons!”

Eve leans in and pinches her cheek. “I don’t like you at all!”

Villanelle slaps her hand away and wants to kiss her again, fuck.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


So they tried the things Eve likes, which are all categorically awful, so Villanelle decides it is time to do the things she likes. Eve is passive, but sporting as Villanelle leads her in and out of shops. She makes a terrible model but an excellent coat rack.

“It looks good on you. Can’t you at least trust me about that?”

Eve’s hands smooth over the silhouette of the Burberry coat she’s been forced into that Villanelle had  _ told _ her was off the rack at a midrange store. It was a smooth lie, but she’s still fairly certain Eve knows. It smells kind of expensive and Eve is perceptive and very annoying about it.

“I do trust you,” Eve says simply, shrugging. Her hands flap at her sides until she decides to just let them dangle.

Villanelle studies her. “You do?”

“Sure. I might not want a £1,500 coat, but I trust you.”

Villanelle groans and takes the opportunity to come closer and button Eve up tighter like that’s going to help her argument. “How do you know things, always. Especially the annoying ones.”

“I know you think it’s superpowers, and that’s very cute, but I know this shopping center  _ and _ the sales associate keeps asking me if she can help me like she’s threatening to call the police.”

“Really? She doesn’t do that to me.”

“Because I’m wearing a clearance shirt and you’re probably already wearing a £1,500 coat.”

Villanelle grins, tying the belt above Eve’s hips. “So rude. My coat is  _ much _ more.”

Eve grins back and pushes her away gently so she can undo the belt and work the buttons loose. “You’re stupid,” she says with so much affection it hits Villanelle like a punch to the gut. “Get me out of this coat.”

“No. I already paid for it while you were stuck.”

“I will kill you.”

Villanelle hears herself whining and doesn’t really try to stop it. “Can’t I just have this? I know you don’t care, but I care and I want you to have it. And I have to look at you a lot and I like looking at you in this coat. It is a gift from me to me! Stop being so selfish.”

“Look somewhere else then. Look over my head, it shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“It  _ isn’t _ but I like looking at your head.”

Eve rolls her eyes and sighs. Her hands ball and slip into the coat’s pockets and she rolls her shoulders experimentally. Like a vestigial instinct, her chin tips down and her eyes slide sightlessly down the length of her body. Her brow furrows and it’s the first time Villanelle has ever wondered genuinely if Eve misses sight at all. Not her place to wonder, but we are not always so good with our places, least of all Villanelle. She buttons it up in her mouth, though. For Eve.

They’re quiet for a little too long.

“What does it look like?”

Villanelle starts from her trance. “What?”

“The coat. What does it look like?”

Villanelle hums as she studies the jacket, part by part. “Virgin wool in a thick black and grey layover plaid, double breasted with a high collar and cape pleating at your shoulder blades with a matching belt. It’s gorgeous. It will make people look at you and you deserve to be looked at. Is it comfortable?”

“It is nice,” Eve says quietly.

Villanelle shrugs and says honestly, “It is the best.”

Eve looks down at herself again, then back up at Villanelle with an open kind of vulnerability. “And what do I look like to you?”

The store’s quiet around them the way expensive places often are, but it makes Villanelle feel almost nervous. She feels on display even though nobody is looking at her. She feels like there are many wrong things to say and not so many right ones. Eve’s tastes are more selective than her own sometimes.

Villanelle chews the inside of her cheek for a few moments, then blows out a fortifying breath through her nose.

“You’re small, but you take up a lot of space somehow. I forget you’re small a lot. You have no idea what you’re wearing and it’s boring, but I wonder a lot how you never end up leaving the house in anything that actually looks bad. You have nice hands, I like them. You have a stern face and I like that too. Your hair is unreal. And you’re...well, you’re very pretty.”

She got there eventually, let it be noted.

Her hands sway at her sides and she resists the urge to add that she is finished. Instead, she lets it sit and watches Eve nod slowly. Her expression doesn’t betray much, but Villanelle thinks if she’d done it wrong, Eve would have told her.

Villanelle finds she has never really felt naked until then.

“And what do you look like?” Eve finally asks, sincere in every possible way.

She’s never cared,  _ she’s said. _

But Villanelle cares,  _ she’s said. _

The better part of valor, right? The sharing interests, Eve is being  _ kind _ .

Eve waits and Villanelle suddenly forgets everything she’s ever known about herself. What comes out is very weird.

“I really am pretty. I look rich, always. I always look the best, because when you look the best, you  _ are _ the best. And I spent enough of my life being nothing to know that when everyone looks at you, you’re something. There’s no better revenge than stealing the attention of people who will never have yours.”

Eve smiles. “What color is your hair, dummy?”

“Green.”

“Villanelle.”

“Blonde,  _ of course. _ The sexiest of hairs.”

“Yeah, I thought you seemed  _ blonde _ . So conceited.” Eve smooths her hands down the front of her coat. “I do trust you. Not to do what’s right, but I trust who you are.” She shrugs, then hangs her head a moment with a long sigh. When she looks up, it’s with a little smile. “Fine, I’ll keep the coat. Creep.”

  
  
  


____________________

  
  
  
  


“Are you seeing someone?” Konstantin asks her abruptly. She thinks he might have stopped mid-sentence about a tech consultant with sticky hands hiding outside of Glasgow. His gaze is stern, a little unhinged. He’s been thinking about this for awhile.

Villanelle stops chewing the sausage she’s speared on the end of her fork. “Sexually? Or are you asking me if I am hallucinating?”

“I know you’re not seeing someone  _ sexually _ ,” he blusters and yes, his cheeks do pink a little bit, he’s such a prude for someone who has spent his entire life finding new and exciting ways to cheat on his wife. “You like the chase, you don’t repeat performances. I am wondering if it is worse.”

“Worse than sexually?” Villanelle’s mouth twists. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Konstantin leans in like the harbinger of death and his voice drops so not even god can hear him. “I mean  _ romantically.” _

Villanelle snorts. “Why, am I glowing?”

“Kind of.”

“It’s just the sausage. You should have ordered food, it is very good.”

Konstantin rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair. His fingers drum with his thoughts on the tabletop and Villanelle does her best to ignore him. “I’m not…” He frowns down at his place setting while he collects his words, then looks up again. “I’m not saying you can’t. Keep your secrets if you must. Just be careful, yes?”

“Good, because you cannot stop me.”

Konstantin’s mouth pinches. “I could. But I won’t. It’s fine.” He sighs and sips from his glass, gathering himself for what Villanelle is sure is going to be something farther from wisdom than he thinks. “You can be happy. Just don’t be honest. Happy and honest are mutually exclusive for people like us. You understand?”

“No. Can you just say normal words for once?”

“Who you are and what you’re doing can’t mix. Tell her whatever you need to tell her, just do not tell her the truth.”

“Who says there is a her?” Villanelle evades.

“Well I sincerely doubt it is a  _ him,” _ he mutters.

Villanelle scoffs and skewers another sausage to chew as grossly as possible, she knows how he hates it. “Life is not two options, old man. And I’m not seeing someone. I can’t be. I’ve found something interesting, but I’ll have to get rid of it eventually.”

“That is very ominous.” He raises an eyebrow at her.

Villanelle stares at the sausage on the end of her fork and loses her appetite. “It is.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. You seemed happier.”

Villanelle puts her fork down.

  
  
  


____________________

  
  
  
  


She thinks about it the entire time she’s picking through Glasgow with a fork for their sneaky little weasel. He’s good, but he’s not that good. Villanelle’s just distracted, she’s  _ thinking. _

It’s an involved activity.

She thinks about Eve, that’s an easy place to start. She likes Eve, she’s fun and pretty and likes Villanelle the way she is, usually. They talk about stupid things and serious things and nothing things and Villanelle likes that too. She liked kissing her. They should do that again.

Villanelle concludes, when she’s sitting at the foot of Andrew McKean’s bed, rifling through his wallet while he twitches the last of his life away in his underpants, that Eve is hers and if she wants to love her she can do that. It’s not so different from a good meal, nice sheets, cashmere, hard sex. What is so different about it?

  
  
  
  


____________________

xxxx.

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	4. xxxx. what the bear is and what the bear isn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what's the harm?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, i think we're all just swirling around the relative time-space vortex dimension like toilet water at this point. thank you for your kind support, you're all dolls.

____________________

xxxx.

____________________

  
  
  


Eve answers her door with one hand held unnaturally at shoulder-height, a dish towel wrapped tightly around it. Villanelle had a mouth full of words ready, in order, the way she wanted them to be, but she stops and stares at Eve’s wrapped hand.

Eve’s expression becomes confused. “Hello? Can I help you?”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Villanelle finally asks. “Without me? You’re cheating on me.”

Eve relaxes and uses her hip to bump the door open further. “Can you not do that? Announce yourself,” she mutters as Villanelle follows her inside.

Just inside the entryway, Villanelle stops in her tracks. “Are you  _ cooking?” _

The dirty look she gets confirms that’s probably what is happening. “No, I’m wounding myself, apparently.”

“Let me see it,” Villanelle requests with interest. Maybe Eve lost a finger or something, that’d be kind of funny. She’ll never cook again, but sometimes the punchline justifies the pain. At the first sign Eve’s going to decline, Villanelle makes an impatient noise. “Oh come on, you don’t even know how bad it is.”

Eve hesitates another moment, then surrenders her wrist so Villanelle can unwind the kitchen towel and take a look. “I hope you like the number nine, this pinky is  _ toast.” _

“Shut up!” Eve laughs nervously and fails to rip her wrist from Villanelle’s stern grip.

“You’re fine, fingers just bleed a lot. It’s not even an important finger. Unless, of course, you still aspire to model women’s jewelry.”

“You know how important that was to me.”

After she’s bandaged it for her and scraped Eve’s hazardous attempts at a meal into the garbage, they stand across from each other at the counter and Villanelle tries to remember the words she’d taught herself to tell Eve what she’s thinking. It’s a barbed proposal.

But she thinks maybe,  _ maybe _ Eve understands her.

Might be a little difficult to swallow. But she wants it. She wants it so bad even if it’s just a taste, even if it’s just for a little while.

“You’re quiet today,” Eve points out. She’s curled over the counter, chin on her uninjured hand.

Villanelle nods to herself. “Hm, yes. I had things I wanted to say to you, but then you cut your finger off and I forgot how I wanted to say them. You ruined it. You’re so mean to me.”

“I am not. Not more than you invite,” Eve chuckles. Her expression turns thoughtful and she drums her fingers on the counter. “Want to start over?”

Villanelle’s about to decline, but she pauses. “Actually, yes. Goodbye, jerkface.”

She stands, collects her coat and walks out.

  
  
  


____________________

  
  
  


An undisclosed amount of very short time later, Villanelle knocks. Eve waits a respectable amount of time before opening the door.

“Whoever could it be?”

“I was in Scotland trying to find a man who keeps trying to steal data from my bosses and while I was waiting for him to die, I kept wondering if I loved you. He was slow, I had time, Eve,” Villanelle makes a very reasonable, very diplomatic gesture with her hands that goes completely unseen. “In fact, I almost settled on it. I could do that, I could just decide it. What is love except liking that you commit to. Well-aged adoration, like eh, gross wine we have paid too much for to accept is gross. We could be gross wine, Eve.”

“You’ve lost me.”

Villanelle’s curious, she finds. “Do you think I love you? We do things almost like that sometimes. I do not know how you see it. Or if you see it at all. Or if you want to see it.”

“Um,” Eve leans against the doorjamb on her hip and crosses her arms, deep in thought. “I don’t know. Why do you think you love me?”

“I think about you all the time and when I’m not here I want to be here. I like the way you treat me. I haven’t killed you even though I really need to.”

“Well, I can tell you that plenty of people haven’t killed me and don’t love me.”

Villanelle sighs. “This is why I want you to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“If I love you!”

Eve’s expression is strange and they’re left standing there in the doorway in weird silence until it boils over and Villanelle demands, “Well?”

“How am I supposed to know that?” She softens and gives her a sympathetic smile. “You know, you can just like me if you want. You don’t have to hurt yourself.”

“I  _ like _ fancy bathtubs and sweet champagne and pasta. I  _ like _ movies and sex and new clothes and those clocks that play songs on the hour. But you’re…” She blows out a frustrated noise and reaches out for Eve’s upper arm. She’s careful to meet her skin softly so Eve has time to get used to it or shrug it off, then she wraps her fingers loosely under Eve’s elbow and lets her fingers slide down to grab her hand. “I’m supposed to kill you, Eve. You know this. You’re trying to stop it, I’m sure. But this will end badly for me if I don’t and  _ worse _ for you. Surviving me is not the least of your worries - you’re in my world now whether I love you or not and we’re not alone here.”

“I know. I can almost promise I’ll make sure of that. You don’t have a monopoly on trouble.”

“If you don’t think I love you, then I won’t, okay?”

Eve’s brow furrows deeper, then realization seems to dawn on her. “You think I won’t believe you?”

Villanelle doesn’t say anything. She’s not sure she believes  _ herself _ , it’s just such a pretty idea and she only ever dresses that way. The rest of it can be quite ugly.

“I think about you all the time, too,” Eve says when nothing else is forthcoming. “I told you I trust you and I meant that. I don’t think you have any idea how honest you are. I’m not sure it's a good thing.”

“What does that mean?” Villanelle sighs, because she’s  _ not. _ She wears skins for a living. She  _ lies _ and she likes it that way.

Eve’s fingers brush along Villanelle’s knuckles and she smiles. “Nobody really thinks they have to hide things from me. Least of all you. You’re getting yourself into awful trouble with me. Do you know that?”

“I know it. I’ve done  _ good _ love. I’ve done it all right and given the right gifts and turned myself into the right person and had all the right intentions and when it was all over it didn’t hurt me any less. I’m not looking for that anymore and neither are you.”

One of Eve’s eyebrows lifts, just a bit seduced by the proposal. They can always count on  _ that _ in common, the two of them.

“I want to pick something and love it in the worst ways, I want a bad idea I can sink my teeth into until it bleeds down my chin. We could be the worst I’ve ever had.”

“You play with your food, you know? It’s so much worse than I thought when we first met.”

“Yes.” Villanelle pauses and leans down closer. “Do you?” She asks quietly.

And in that, at least, Eve doesn’t seem to have an answer. Not one she wants to own up to. She makes a little ruffled noise in the back of her throat when Villanelle takes her own hand back and drops Eve’s.

“Tell me not to and I won’t. Because it won’t change anything and it won’t change me and it won’t change you. You have to  _ tell me. _ ”

She really won’t, if Eve won’t. _ But she wants it. _

That’s not always enough, she knows that, has been reminded of it by every breathing person in her life. But it really, really should be, shouldn’t it? Everything should be a two way switch, on or off.

They both let it sit like that, Villanelle leaning close on her forearm at the door frame and Eve looking thoughtful, deliberate. It’s hard not to feel weighed and measured.

“And if I said yes? If I let you and I let me?” Eve says slowly, reaching out until she finds Villanelle’s coat and pulls pinched fingers along the lapel hem. “What’ll that look like?”

“Ugly,” Villanelle giggles and traps Eve’s hand against her stomach. “It’ll be so ugly, Eve. It always is with me.”

“Yeah,” Eve sighs. “Me too.” A few moments pass and Eve’s expression relaxes. “Whatever, right?” She grins and looks up at Villanelle. “It’d be fun, though, right until the splat at the end.”

“Yes I am very fun until that. You could be too. I see that in you.”

“I won’t stop you. It’s my worst quality.” Eve’s hand finds her chin easily so she can kiss her once, just a peck that Villanelle doesn’t even have time to return. “Do what you want. I like you that way.”

What she wants is to kiss her better, sink in and dig. She wants another go at it and for once in her life, she’s been told that what she wants is what she should have. Naked, blistering honesty between them and  _ maybe _ Eve had a point. It’s ugly what they’ve done to each other, but it’s clean debridement and holy shit, Villanelle is so  _ done _ thinking and talking about it.

She doesn’t  _ think _ she loves Eve. She’s just going to and she’s going to think very little and she’s going to kiss her.

Eve smiles when Villanelle does kiss her, even if her hands take a moment to recenter on Villanelle’s hips as they square and pin her on the doorframe. She asks so much permission, it’s nice to take this for herself. Eve gives her nice things, sometimes.

Eve’s not an overeager coed or a vacationer like Villanelle’s used to - always looking for the tourists because if there’s one thing she understands its wanting fun with an exit plan. Eve is different,  _ she’s not going anywhere. _ She’s unbothered, this is her doorway and this was her idea.

It’s like the bar, only Villanelle feels she has more control, feels her feet under her rather than over her head. She can hold Eve’s face and keep her against the door frame and do what she wants.

But there’s the lingering feeling of Eve’s hand when it drifts and settles on her chest and it’s nothing in the way of force, but she feels it and doesn’t stop feeling it. She feels everything. She feels Eve breathe out through her nose when Villanelle pulls back just a touch to readjust. She feels the hum in the back of Eve’s throat. She feels her pulse quick, but not frantic in her ring finger on the line of her carotid. She feels Eve like something hooked up under her ribcage.

Suddenly, Eve’s hand pushes harder against her chest and she’s forced back. Eve’s head cocks to the side like she’s listening for something. “Bill,” she says.

Villanelle is about to remind her,  _ no _ . Not Bill.  _ Villanelle _ . Who is Bill? She will kill Bill.

“Evening, Eve...and  _ guest _ .”

Villanelle looks over her shoulder to where grumpy neighbor is watching them with a bag of groceries, eyes narrowed at Villanelle specifically. It wasn’t even her idea!

“I am behaving,” Villanelle feels compelled to tell him.

Eve shakes her head. “She’s not,” she advises Bill, then grabs the front of Villanelle’s jacket and pulls her through the doorway so she can shut the door on him.

Villanelle’s led through the living room,  _ past the living room _ , yes. Good. 

When Eve’s lured her into the bedroom and kicked the door closed, Villanelle stoops a bit so Eve can find her shoulders with her hands. “Can I take over or will that make you cranky?” Villanelle asks. “You’re so fussy.”

Eve narrows her eyes playfully. “Fine. But know that just by asking, you negate control.”

“Always at your pace, Eve Polastri,” Villanelle exasperates, placing fingers on Eve’s cheek so she knows she’s about to kiss her again.

Villanelle’s never really considered how little of intimacy is visual, or how little of the  _ good parts _ need to be. Eve’s touchy, as is her right, but Villanelle likes the way her hands stay busy. Eve is present, incessantly so, she has to be. She doesn’t have the option to pretend or to sit back and treat sex like the spectacle strangers do. Until now, Villanelle has never really realized how much sex in her life was done at arm’s length. People want to fuck from as far as possible. There’s nothing more dangerous than being present.

Whether Eve’s bringing her wandering mouth back for another, sometimes humorously chaste kiss, or whether she’s folding Villanelle into her neck with arms wrapped tight around her neck, or whether her fingertips are drifting the length of Villanelle’s chest and belly to come back and test the speed of her heart just there between her ribs, she’s never  _ far. _ She’s anything but.

Villanelle says wicked, dirty things in her ear and Eve laughs this little breathy thing. Or she says something nice back and Villanelle thinks she’s made the right choice. Bad choices are so much more rewarding. She’d take this one day and a knife in the back over the years of simpering blandness of Anna.

“Just like that,” Eve hisses and Villanelle can’t help but agree.

_ Just like this. _

The  _ touching _ digs between her ribs and Villanelle thinks it probably has nothing to do with blindness and probably more to do with something so much more dangerous.  _ The splat at the end. _

It does bring something out in her, though. Villanelle keeps asking stupid questions.

“Is that good?” Villanelle asks even though there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.

“Do you mind if I shift you on top?” Even though Eve is already rolling her over to ride her own weight against the grind of Villanelle’s hand until her nails draw blood in the taught skin of Villanelle’s chest and she comes.

Eve thanks her and it makes Villanelle laugh.

“What are you going to do to me?” She asks, even though Eve is already pushing down the length of her stomach and Villanelle’s fingers are already twisting instinctively into Eve’s hair.

None of these things really require answers, but Eve hums or laughs in the back of her throat or pinches her side and that’s reason enough to keep asking.

“Do I make you nervous?” Eve finally asks a question of her own against the inside of Villanelle’s thigh and it is a very bad time to be asking that for many reasons.

“I think I was born without that gene,” Villanelle hisses, Eve is sharper than she might’ve guessed, but that’s her fault for the bad guessing.

“You can ask me questions you don’t think you should ask, you know? I like you that much,” she laughs. “And I’m vulnerable. Strike while the iron is hot, killer.”

“Do you wish you could see me?” Villanelle blurts out, then bites into her own knuckle. “I wish that,” she says quietly around it. “Sorry. Forget it. Yes, I’m nervous.”

Eve doesn’t really answer, but she does say, “I do see you,” before pressing her mouth into Villanelle and pulling an embarrassing whine from the back of her throat. Eve makes her want in ways she’s grown accustomed to giving. Eve makes her feel delightfully small.

“ _ Easy _ ,” Eve has to tell her off when she pulls too hard on her nice hair. But if she really minded, she wouldn’t be smiling, she’d be pinching her or something. She’s got something for everything, that one. For this, Eve just runs her fingers over the jut of Villanelle’s hip bones and dances fingers on her belly that make her want to melt out from her own skin.

Before she can think of anymore stupid questions, Villanelle’s nerves light up and she’s saying Eve’s name too many times as her body jumps and crests with a shiver. Eve lets her ride it before pulling her helping hand out and away with a pained laugh. “Cramp,” she explains, rolling away to massage the knotted muscle in her palm. “Out of practice. Ouch, ouch.”

“We’ll get you back in shape,” Villanelle murmurs, her forearm draped over her own eyes to shut out the stimulation of seeing for a few moments. “I’m a very encouraging coach with the right motivation. You know it’s actually about cardio? People don’t get that.”

“Brat,” Eve says without any venom. She scoots her way back up to her pillows and flops back, taking up as much room as possible.

Villanelle’s staring at her waiting for Eve to do the thing again. The thing where she reaches out and keeps her close, feels out her ribs and her neck and her face, she  _ wants it. _

But wanting and asking are very different things.

Eve’s breathing slows and Villanelle starts to get worried they’re done with that.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Eve’s eyes blink open and her head turns on the pillow toward Villanelle with a confused smile. “No. Why? Do you want to? You seem like the type.”

“I don’t want to,” Villanelle defends herself. “I want…”

Eve waits long enough to be polite, then rolls her eyes fondly. “Yeesh, fine. I won’t make you ask.” She pushes up on her elbows and stretches a hand out to find Villanelle’s body before shuffling herself over to curl around her. “Okay, doll. But if I get sweaty, I’m going to have to...just sort of emotionally support you from over there. I’ll say really nice things and stuff, you’ll love it you giant baby,” she mutters as her arms circle the bottom rung of Villanelle’s ribs from behind. When Villanelle doesn’t say anything, Eve sighs behind her ear. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Yes.”

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were cute.”

“Konstantin said I’m 27 now and I’m not allowed to be cute, it gives him high blood pressure.”   
  


“I’m sorry, you’re  _ what?” _

  
  
  


_____________________

  
  
  


It’s her good side, Villanelle decides. She knew she had to have one in there somewhere. She pretends there’s nothing between them but shared meals and surprise visits and small outings and good sex and in that way, it feels like a thing that’s hers. A thing she’s made that nobody else  _ really _ needs to know about and nobody else can have. She’s been for sale her whole life, but this is not.

She stops offering the details of her trips, the things she does, the person waiting for her when she walks out of the flat, because  _ she can be this _ . It’s so temporary anyways, what’s the harm?

_ What’s the harm _ , she keeps thinking.

  
  


____________________

  
  


Eve gives her a key to the apartment because she’s tired of having to get up at weird hours whenever Villanelle decides it’s a good time to drop by unannounced.

_ What’s the harm _ , Villanelle thinks.

  
  


____________________

  
  


Villanelle hasn’t been back to her Parisian flat in almost a month and there was only one overnight job in Belfast to hide behind.

_ What’s the harm, _ Villanelle thinks.

  
  


____________________

  
  


Villanelle buys a prepaid phone that no soul on the continent or otherwise has the number to  _ except _ Eve, because going dark for days or weeks when work comes up makes her anxious in ways she’s unaccustomed to and  _ what’s the harm? _

  
  


_____________________

  
  


There’s clothes in Eve’s apartment.  _ Clothes. _

A drawer belonging to her. Then two. Hangers and vanity space and fancy shower gels and-

_ What’s the… _

  
  


____________________

  
  


They don’t talk so much anymore, Konstantin and her. And she wonders if it’s her fault, but the more she thinks about it, the more Villanelle realizes that the talking was only ever her idea. When she’s not pulling it out of him like ripped guts, he’s content to be left alone. He doesn’t have anything he wants to say to her.

It hurts, but in the way old things hurt. Ache with the weather, maybe, but long-since smoothed over and mostly just thin white lines on skin.

“Do you ever wish we were friends?” Villanelle asks him out of the blue.

His mouth opens, then closes. For the first time in months, he seems to actually look at her. He’s forgotten to do that in a while. “I actually used to wish we weren’t.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Villanelle shrugs. “I hung on really fucking hard, though, you know? That’s what it looked like for me -  _ hanging on _ . I wanted it.” He doesn’t say anything and Villanelle shrugs again, she’s really not that upset anymore. She’s happy the job is over and her flight to London is leaving in an hour.

Predictably, Konstantin changes the subject. It must be so nice to just choose what’s true and what’s not. Just make the people in your life into whatever you want them to be and ignore the rest.

“Trotter’s investigation is heating up. MI6 is apparently loading their task force. You know your witness signed a visitor’s log that night. Fake name, but she’s MI6’s most wanted. My contact is breathing down my neck. Did she have a service dog? Those are all registered I think.”

Villanelle’s chest twists in on itself, but her face betrays nothing. “Yes,” she lies.  _ Just a few more days. _ “If anything was to come of it, it would’ve happened by now.”

“We’ll find her first. Whatever happens, I’m sure of that. Money always wins, you know?”

Villanelle frowns.

  
  


____________________

  
  


Surprises probably aren’t great for Eve’s health, but Villanelle declines to warn her she’s coming back early. Or she forgot to?

She’s in a bit of a rush.

Eve’s very fragile, and very unaware of it and very annoying. Half the time, Villanelle doesn’t even  _ need _ the key she’s been given, Eve leaves her door open. MI6 and The Twelve’s most wanted is a blind mess of a homeowner with an attitude problem! It is amazing how not-dead she is! Eve treats one of the leading international criminal enterprises like a gnat in her ear. She treats their best assassin like a sex toy! Okay, she likes that part, but still!

And it was fine when Villanelle was the one with the knife to Eve’s ribs, they had an understanding. There was no hiding, they were playing a game, having fun. Now there is no game, there are assassins and agents and  _ many _ . Villanelle is very good but she’s just  _ one. _

They just need to hide her better, Villanelle resolves.

It’s a lesson you learn in orphanages, of which Villanelle bounced between many, and it’s  _ don’t flaunt the thing you don’t want taken. _ Flaunt the things you like, but do not flaunt the things you love.

She’ll put Eve in a box and mail her to Tasmania if she has to.

In a rush, Villanelle unlocks Eve’s door quickly and throws it open, marching inside. Eve’s at her desk and she calls out to her in greeting, but her hands are very quickly shuffling things around, covering documents with others.

Some of it clatters from her desk in her haste.

“We need to-”

Villanelle stops over Eve’s shoulder and looks down. Eve’s covered her prison file, unwittingly, with a photograph, so the cold, grainy glare of dark eyes from a younger, more feral  _ her _ stares up through Eve’s guilty fingers.

Neither of them say anything and Eve doesn’t resist when Villanelle reaches over her and slips some of the documents out from under Eve’s hands. Her reader’s holding down a particularly salacious incident report from a brawl she’s sure kept her isolated for months. It must make for good reading.

In a trance, Villanelle rounds Eve to perch in a partial sit on the edge of the desk as her hands peel away layers of the file, eyes scanning words she hardly sees.

Eve’s eyes stay down at her hands resting on the empty surface.

“Villanelle…”

Looking up, Villanelle gives Eve a cool look she won’t even need to see. She’ll hear it in her voice,  _ she’ll feel it. _ And she knows what she’s done, it’s written all over her face too.

“I see you’ve found Oksana.”

All Eve says is, “Yes.”

“She looks like me, If you’re wondering.” Villanelle shuffles the photo back to the front and cocks her head as she stares at her. “I kind of thought I wouldn’t, but you know what? I actually look pretty much the same.”

Eve keeps staring at her hands and Villanelle shoots her an annoyed look. “What? Now you have nothing to say to me? I told you what I’ve done. Is it different when someone else reads it to you? This isn’t even  _ half _ of it, Eve.”

“I wanted to know,” Eve finally says slowly. Her expression is neutral.

“Why?”

“Because knowing things is the only protection I have.”

“Protection against what, Eve? Do you think knowing me will protect you? Do you know how many people knew my name before I killed them? It doesn’t  _ matter _ .”

“Why is this different? Why is knowing Oksana different than knowing Villanelle?” Eve asks, measured and careful. Which  _ fine, _ she’s finally starting to get it. She  _ should _ be careful.

Villanelle lets out a low laugh, humorless and dark. “It is not different. I am now what I had to be then and will always be. But knowing  _ both _ is worth so much more to the right buyer. It makes  _ you _ dangerous.” Villanelle hums and studies Eve while Eve appears to chew through it. “Is that what you wanted? Did you want to be dangerous like me?”

Eve’s eyes narrow, she’s annoyed too,  _ good. _

“I was always dangerous. It’s not my fault you won’t acknowledge it.”

“Here’s the difference between you and me, though: when they come for me, I’ll survive it. When they come for you, you won’t.”

Eve bristles,  _ good. _

“Still want to be dangerous, Eve?”

Eve’s expression relaxes and she leans back in her chair, chin tilted up in Villanelle’s direction. “I warned you this would happen.”

“What?”

“I told you. Explicitly. I told you that you could kill me however fast or however slow you liked, but I’m not running from you. I don’t have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you.”

In a gust of anger, Villanelle bursts out into mean laughter and swipes a stack of carefully tabbed folders to the ground so they scatter and flutter around. “Okay, what the  _ fuck _ is the  _ bear _ ?”

Eve stands to her full height and blocks herself, squared up at Villanelle’s chest. “If you have to ask, you still don’t get it.”

“Okay, I don’t get it! Would you just tell me?!”

“All I know is you’ve had a million chances to kill me but there wasn’t a moment when I ever felt like you were going to do it. You’re not running from me and I’m not running from you, so we’re both running from  _ something else. _ The point isn’t what we  _ are _ running from, the point is what we  _ weren’t _ running from. And I never once ran from you.”

“I’m not  _ running!” _

“Then why am I still alive? I can’t tell you what the bear is, Villanelle. I can tell you what I’m running from but it won’t help you.”

Villanelle’s fingers curl into delicate, yellow-worn papers until they crack and wrinkle and split. “And what’s that?” She grits out.

“I hurt myself, Villanelle. I always do,  _ I love it _ . I horde secrets and I crave danger. I know why I haven’t told anyone about you. Do you know why you haven’t told anyone about me?”

“ _ Shut up _ ,” Villanelle snaps, crashing forward with rough hands and teeth sharp behind the lips she presses into Eve’s.  _ She knows. _ They both do, she doesn’t want to hear it. Because knowing is a thing that Villanelle has chosen, but Oksana will never be able to. She needs to not hear and she needs to not feel and if that means  _ seeing _ , then fine. Eve’s not surprised or even unprepared, she’s ready with teeth just as sharp.

And she’s not so gentle when she lifts Eve onto her desk and pins her hips down to worry teeth into her skin and prick bruises into it. Her neck blooms red and her jaw blooms redder. They had to get around to this eventually, they’re both creatures of violence in their own way. And that can be a love language too if you mean it bad enough.

“Tell me to stop if you don’t want to see me now. This is me too.”

Eve breathes out, shaky and aroused even as she’s being pinned and she nods. “Okay. Okay, I know.”

She asks it of Eve a few times, teeth pinching her breast, three fingers squeezed deep in her at an unkind pace. She asks it while Eve’s hands card through the back of her hair like she still wants her close. She asks it when Eve has to ask her to stop, she’s too sensitive and even Villanelle’s tongue is too much:

_ “Do you see me now?” _

Later, Villanelle’s still wound up. She hasn’t come at all because she won’t let Eve touch her, so instead she’s curled away from her on the far end of the bed they’d somehow made it to, staring out at nothing.

Eve’s hand finds her hip and tries to turn her onto her back, but she resists on principle. “I’m not trying to make you do anything. But I’d like to touch you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Villanelle grumbles. “I might bite.”

A barely there laugh puffs through Eve’s nose against Villanelle’s shoulder. “Okay. You can bite.”   
  


It doesn’t solve anything, but she rolls over and lets Eve kiss her. She doesn’t bite, she’s too tired. She just sits in Eve’s lap and lets her fuck her into an easy, pent up release that ends with a kiss to her cheek.

Villanelle rests her temple against Eve’s and lingers, wondering what this is going to look like tomorrow. “Is this what you wanted?”

Eve hums, noncommittal.

“Which one did you like better?” Villanelle presses lazily. “I can be whatever you like. If you like Oksana, if you like  _ knowing. _ I don’t care, I want you to have what you want. I’m so selfish that way.”

In her mind, she thinks about how ephemeral it is, anyways. Truly, again,  _ what’s the harm? _

Eve doesn’t answer for a long while, but when she decides to, she takes care to unseat Villanelle and separate them from each other. Her unfocused gaze is sincere. “If you’re still going to kill me, then what you’re doing is hurting you.”

“And if I’m not?” VIllanelle entertains flatly.

“Then what you’re doing is hurting me.”

Villanelle folds her naked legs together, crosses them and props an elbow on her knee to rest her cheek in her hand. “Am I hurting you? I haven’t meant to. Not yet. Even if I do, it wasn’t with this.”

“I’m not worried about me. People leave, I don’t mind. In fact, sometimes I make them leave. I don’t know what you’re running from, Villanelle. But I know me. I know that loving something I know is temporary - mm, no. Loving something I think will kill me is  _ exactly _ what I’m good at. I think I wanted you to hurt me.”

“And I did?”   
  


“Worse. You didn’t.”

Villanelle frowns.

“So I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about  _ you. _ And I think whatever you do, it’s going to go badly for you.”

“Have you sold me? Have you sold Oksana?”

“No.”

“Lie to me if you want,” Villanelle sighs. “Wherever you got those files, it won’t matter. You’ve tripped wires you don’t even know to look for.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“No you won’t,” Villanelle laughs dryly. It’s shockingly easy to pull this back on with her underwear and her pants and the shirt she finds in the living room. Turns out, Oksana is never far. And never so near as sitting on Eve’s desk,  _ she did this to them.  _ Eve doesn’t follow her around the flat, she just sits in bed staring through the wall.

Before she leaves, Villanelle walks back to Eve’s bedroom and braces herself in the doorway. “Time to worry about yourself now, okay? I don’t hurt. I spend my life killing people, surrounded by wealth and extravagance. And I enjoyed loving you, but I’d kill you and never look back if it’ll cost me myself.” Villanelle watches her, unwatched for long moments. “ _ That’s _ what you found in the box,” she says quietly.

Eve shakes her head just the slightest bit, but her face screams  _ pity. _

That has never been anything Villanelle has had use for.

She turns and leaves.

  
  


____________________

  
  
  


Predictably, Villanelle is called upon in the following days.

She feels unpacked.

A woman named Hélène introduces herself in the bar of a hotel in Marseilles after Konstantin delivers her there with a tense face. She reeks of power and Villanelle stares for long moments trying to figure the best way to play this game.

“So you know the Trotter witness,” she leads with.

Which means she does too. Which means this is not an interrogation, it’s a test.

Carefully, Villanelle tips her head in acknowledgement.

“I hope this is a recent development.”

Villanelle gives nothing and it makes Hélène smile like a shark.

She sips her red wine daintily and lets the clatter of soft private conversation from the seated dine-in patrons carry them through the next few minutes alone. When she puts her wine glass down again, she takes great care to look like she’s only just remembered Villanelle is there at all.

“So? What’s it going to be?”

There’s been no preface, but Villanelle knows. The Twelve pay so nicely for their souls. When you pay that nicely, you don’t share.

“Let me do it,” Villanelle says quietly.

Hélène’s expression opens for a moment and Villanelle thinks she’s surprised her. But Villanelle knows it’s only because she wanted to demand it before it could be offered. It was always going to be that way, whether Villanelle wanted it or not.

When Hélène’s face shutters back into calm control, the smile she offers turns Villanelle’s stomach. “Good, Oksana.” Their gaze breaks when a server arrives with a meal, one clearly ordered before Villanelle’s arrival. She’s not offered any and she’s too twisted up to ask. Her stomach is already sour.

As Hélène trims at her food with daintily held fork and knife, she addresses it rather than Villanelle. “Neatly, okay? We can only forgive so much mess.”

“Okay.”

“Does she know you?”

Villanelle looks down at her hands sitting on the table, close together. Awkward. “Yes. But she’s just a blind woman living in London.”

“Hm,” Hélène hums doubtfully. She chews through another bite with great care, then rests the tines of her fork against the plate to give Villanelle her full attention again. “Nobody is  _ just _ anything these days, are they?”

Villanelle doesn’t answer her and she doesn’t seem to mind.

“What is her name?”

“Eve Polastri.”

Hélène’s eyes spark and Villanelle wonders whether or not The Twelve  _ actually _ knew or if it ever mattered at all. “I won’t ask why she’s still alive. And you’re welcome for that.”

“Okay,” Villanelle says dully. She wants to leave.

“And it’s only because I admire your work. It shows promise.”

“Okay.”

“But you’ll learn that food isn’t to be played with. You’re too old for that,” she scolds.

Villanelle thinks it’s just the slightest bit hypocritical. She feels very  _ played with. _ The woman’s gaze is insincerely sincere as she abandons her utensils entirely to lean over her dinner toward Villanelle. “I know you, Oksana.”

_ She’s opened the box _ , Villanelle notes and something like an ugly laugh tries to bubble up her throat, but she swallows it.

“Whatever interested you about her, it wouldn’t have for long. I’ll find something better for you.”

And that’s a very, very nice thought.

  
  
  


____________________

  
  
  


When Eve’s out, Villanelle lets herself into the apartment. The files are gone. The box is gone. Oksana’s been packed up and shipped out or hidden or destroyed, maybe.

But there are many fables and cautionary tales about boxes and great debate about whether a thing capable of being opened is capable of being closed again.

It doesn’t matter.

Villanelle empties her drawers and packs the suitcase she’d brought, then stows it in a corner Eve won’t find it in. She wipes down Eve’s headboard and her nightstand and her bathroom and the doors and frames and fridge and counter and  _ everything. _ No trace.

And she’ll forget too maybe.

Eve won’t have to worry about that.

  
  


_____________________

xxxxx.

____________________

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dread pirate roberts voice: goodnight wesley, i'll likely kill you in the morning

**Author's Note:**

> @coldmackerels on twitter. come be my neighbor.


End file.
